“I don’t think we need to worry about that. The English police sent the birth certificate and passport back to us. Did your aunt and uncle ever talk about Eagan, the son who died?”
“To them IwasEagan. I had to call themmàthairandathair. Aunt Nessa thought I really was her son. When I argued or tried to run away, she said I was bad, that I was ungrateful and… She believed I was Eagan, but my uncle pretended. He’d started the lie and she bought into it and I thought he was as crazy as her until… I learnt that it was easier to play the game than fight. So I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t talk much to them. I did my work, and made the horses my friends along with Bela, my crow, and I…existed. I had a world of my own that I escaped into. I drew picture books and… They got burnt one day when my uncle was mad with me. Then he had the accident on his quad bike, I…” He gave a heavy sigh.
“I was an immature nineteen-year-old. I’m only just twenty, hardly any more mature. They wanted me to be a child forever, though one who did a lot of work on the farm, but they couldn’t stop me growing up. There was a restlessness inside me that had me pushing at boundaries. I wanted to see the world and they weren’t going to let me do that.
“My uncle never fully trusted me. I begged to go with him when he went to horse fairs and he wouldn’t let me. I wasn’t even allowed to go to the supermarket. We argued more and more. If it hadn’t been for the horses, I’d have gone sooner. But I had no money, nowhere to go, no family as far as I knew. No experience of life. No real knowledge of the world.
“My uncle’s accident was the turning point. If that hadn’t happened, if he hadn’t finally told me the truth… Once my eyes were open, I acted.” Maybe he’d done the wrong thing but what was the point of fretting about that now? “How are my aunt and uncle?” Not that he cared, not after what they’d done, but…
“Nessa Byrne is in a secure psychiatric facility. She’s deteriorated since your uncle’s accident. She thinks you’re a young boy of eight. She asks for you, worries about you, says you banged your head and she talks about you being missing and demands someone find you. At other times, she thinks you’re with her, but that you’re both at the farm and she’s cooking dinner.”
Ru shuddered.
“Were they physically abusive?”
“A few slaps and smacks. My uncle clouted me when I didn’t do something fast enough. They controlled everything about my life, particularly at first. I had to behave in the way they said or I was locked in my room. The window was nailed shut. I was given no food. No access to Bela, or the horses. I tried to run away with Bela, sometimes on foot, a couple of times on a horse, but they always found me, brought me back and I was punished.
“It’s hard now to believe I did enough to try and get away, but when they threatened Bela, I was scared to risk it. If I ever heard my uncle fire his gun when I was locked in my room or tied up in the barn, I used to cry. Bela was my saviour and my downfall.”
“Where is she now?”
“In England with my parents.”
“How’s your relationship with them?”
“Is that relevant?”
Walsh shrugged. “I just wondered.”
“It’s not good. I don’t know if I want to make it better. They hurt my brother. He can’t forgive them. Why should I? I know the grudge between my father and my uncle is at the heart of all this. Enough that my father was happy to let his brother walk out of his life, little knowing my uncle had taken me with him. I think it’s part of the way Traveller men operate. They fight a lot and whatever happened with my father and uncle went a step further than that.”
“Did your aunt and uncle never have visitors? Someone you could appeal to for help?”
“The farm is isolated. No one passed by accident. If anyone did come, I was whisked away. If they knew someone was coming, to deliver fuel or look at the horses, I was gagged and tied up in the cellar or in the barn. My uncle said he’d kill Bela if I made a sound. So I didn’t make a sound. Even if she wasn’t around, I couldn’t take the risk of him shooting her when she came back. The only person I ever saw was Malone, who owns the farm nearest to them, though it’s not that near. I was eventually allowed to meet him as their son, Eagan. But never on my own. The threat to Bela was always there. And really, what did I have to complain about? As far as I knew, my family was dead, and they were my family now.”
“Your Uncle Felan is still in hospital in Dublin. There’s been some complications, though he’s improving again now. He’s telling a very different story to yours.”
Ru tensed. “Go way outta that. What’s he saying?”
“That your parents abused you, that you begged him to take you to Ireland, that you caused your uncle’s accident by interfering with the quad bike because he burned some indecent images you’d drawn, that you wanted money from him and he refused.”
Ru gaped at him. It had never occurred to him that his uncle would lie. After the biggest lie Ru had been told, he should have expected this.
“He says you stole ten thousand euros. He told his lawyer where it was hidden at the farm, but there was no sign of it.”
Ru shivered. He opened his mouth and nothing came out, not even air.
“He claims it was you who wanted to be called Eagan because you knew it made your aunt happy. He acknowledges she’s mentally ill, but claims you made her worse.”
“That’s just…” Ru swallowed hard, his pulse racing.
“Why didn’t you try harder to get away? Not when you were a young boy, but as an older teenager?”
“Worry for the horses. Anxiety about a world I no longer knew. There was no landline. My uncle had a phone but he always kept it with him. Locked. Who was I supposed to call? They’d told me my parents and my brother were dead. I had nowhere to go. You can’t possibly be thinking he’s the one telling the truth. My father misidentified the body as being me when it was Eagan. My uncle needed my father to say the body was mine for his plan to work. He’d changed Eagan into my clothes. Destroyed his son’s face.” Ru gasped. “Is he claiming I did that? An eight-year-old? Why bother with any of that if I’d asked to go with him? It’s too much of a coincidence that Eagan had just died and they never reported it.”
Ru found himself breathing too quickly.
TheGardapushed the bottle of water towards him. “We don’t believe him. We believe you. But things would be easier if he’d just admit what he’d done. I suspect he wants you to let this go.”
