The Triumph of Katie Byrne by Barbara Taylor Bradford

black brows drawing together in a frown. His slate-green eyes were thoughtful. ‘That’s true, Katie. She has always been an odd duck. I was Barry’s friend, you know, since our junior high days, and when he died, I tried to help Janet get through her grief, and so did your mother. But she never wanted us around, not really.’
    ‘She’s not a woman who likes intimacy or familiarity,’ Maureen volunteered. ‘At least, that’s my opinion. ‘Tis a pity, but she’s kept everyone at arm’s length, and bythat I mean Barry’s friends. But still, that doesn’t make her a bad person, does it?’
    ‘No. But there is something cold about her.’ Katie looked from her mother to her father. ‘Cool and collected. ’ Katie shook her head. ‘In a way, I wish we hadn’t gone. It was so…banal.’
    ‘ Banal ,’ Maureen repeated. ‘What a funny thing to say.’ She gave Katie a curious stare. Her daughter surprised her sometimes, in much the same way Finian did with the odd things he came out with.
    ‘Trite, Mom. And it was certainly not very important to Mrs Smith. Even though she thanked us, in a way they weren’t the right words, she didn’t say the right words.’
    Again startled by his daughter’s insight, Michael said, ‘Now that you mention it, Katie, I think you’re probably right. But we had to go to the hospital, for Carly’s sake. And our own. How could we have lived with ourselves, if we’d not gone? We’ve known Carly almost all of her life, and she’s your dearest friend. It was the only decent thing to do. And I know your mother agrees.’
    ‘Yes, I know she does, and I do, too, Dad. I was only trying to say that I don’t think Carly’s mother was at all grateful. She didn’t appreciate our being there.’
    ‘Perhaps she did, Katie darlin’, we can’t be sure,’ Maureen remarked in a quiet tone. ‘Janet’s always been so… contained. In control. Revealing nothing. Although God only knows what she’s been trying to hide.Maybe nothing at all. Perhaps she just can’t properly express herself…’ Maureen broke off, shrugged. ‘Well, we made the effort to go and comfort her, and that’s what counts. And we shall go again to see how Carly is, and keep going to the hospital till that girl’s on her two feet again.’
    ‘Mom, Dad, did you notice Mrs Smith never made any reference to the Matthewses, or to Denise? Wasn’t that peculiar?’
    ‘She cut herself off when Denise’s name was on the tip of her tongue,’ Michael muttered.
    ‘Yes, we all noticed that, I think.’ Maureen gave a long sigh. ‘It was a bit shocking, not a thought, not a word for Denise or her parents.’
    A silence lay between them for a few minutes, but eventually Michael broke it when he looked across at Katie and said, ‘Are you really sure Denise didn’t have a boyfriend?’
    Katie shook her head vehemently. ‘She didn’t, Dad! Just as Carly didn’t, doesn’t, and neither do I. You know that. You know how much we all wanted to go to New York, to go to acting school. It’s all we’ve thought about, talked about and aimed for, and for years. Boys haven’t figured into anything we did, Dad.’
    ‘That’s what I thought, believed , and that’s what I said to Mac MacDonald.’
    ‘And I told Detective Groome the same thing. He kept pressing me about Denise, asking me whether or notshe had a boyfriend when he took my statement. And I kept telling him there was no boyfriend, and no secret admirer, either.’
    A short while after this, her father went to lock the doors, and then the three of them trooped upstairs together. On the landing, her parents kissed her goodnight, and Katie went into her room and closed the door.
    Within seconds she was in bed, curled up in a ball underneath the eiderdown, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, pressing back the sudden flow of tears with her fingertips. She sighed, and tried to settle down, wanting to go to sleep.
    She was almost dozing off when there was a tap on the