Legitimate Target

by Dee McInnes

  “I agree there’s something that’s off, but I can’t come up with anything that makes sense,” Pete said, draining his glass. “I’m beginning to feel the same way as you about all of this. It’s making my head hurt, or maybe that’s just the alcohol,” he laughed.

  She toppled the sugar stacks. “I wonder if Mitch could persuade his mum to talk to us. Once Haslett is locked up, she might come out of her shell. She could solve the mystery about who was coming and going. Perhaps there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation?”

  “Maybe she got a pizza delivery?” Pete said. “I always get the munchies, late at night.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Viv smiled.

  “Let’s think about something less complicated,” he said. “Like the knees-up in Derry on Monday night, although I thought we might go out drinking this weekend. When our feature is put to bed, we should celebrate.”

  “Let’s see what The Boss says and whether he wants us to run a follow-up story. We might have to go back to Ballylester to speak to Gillian or Rhona. We could play our trump card and say we’re looking into allegations surrounding the fire that killed Andrew. That might get their attention. Maybe we’ll find out where Rhona was on the morning her mother died.”

  Viv looked at her watch. It was almost midnight. “Let’s call it a day.”

  “I enjoyed dinner, I’m glad we had the chance to talk about everything,” Pete said.

  “Me too. I’ll see you outside the Laganside tomorrow, same place and time as before and don’t forget the coffee. I’m looking forward to hearing Nolan’s verdict and seeing the charming doctor face the public, for the last time. I wonder what he’s doing now…”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Steven still blamed his sister for the argument at the New Year’s Eve party, that led him to drink more than usual. He had always been the smartest person in the room. Top of his class at medical school, the highest grossing surgeon at the hospital for five years running. Rhona had wanted to promote Jan Kozlowski to the position of deputy Chair of the Board. “He’s been here for nine years,” she had pleaded, “Jan’s well respected, quite brilliant. A leader in his field. It’s deserved. We could announce it tonight.” Steven remembered her words precisely.

  “Your judgement’s clouded by your personal attachment,” he’d told her. “I am sure you’d welcome the excuse to spend more time together. Remember we were sued for nerve damage, after that botched knee replacement he carried out, and the year before one of his patients nearly died from a blood clot.”

  “Those were unavoidable,” Rhona had snorted. “Nerve damage, as you know, can’t always be determined until after the intervention and the woman who had a blood clot was severely overweight. We were cleared of any malfeasance. His success rate is way up there, on par with your own. We’re in danger of losing him. He told me he’s had interest from St Vincent’s. I’ve got enough board members with me, whether we have your vote or not.” She had started to walk off towards the function room, where the dinner-dance was in progress.

  He had pulled his sister back, squeezing her arm tighter than necessary. “Don’t forget Rhona, family always sticks together.”

  She had shrugged him off. “That record’s a little worn out, don’t you think? I turned a blind eye to your after-hours activities, but I know you, Steven. You were just as culpable as me and my actions were completely unintentional.”

  “Oh yes. You were always father’s favourite. But you still kept the secret.”

  “It was what mother wanted.”

  He took refuge at the bar and fell in with some junior doctors who were making the most of the complimentary drinks service. Steven had pretended to laugh at their jokes. One of the doctors had been pursuing an agency nurse and told the story about how they had made out in an empty surgical store.

  It was warm and noisy inside. Steven had strolled out onto the terrace for fresh air. That was when he realised how much he’d had to drink. He hated the way Rhona had begun to have the upper hand in running the hospital and thought about how he could knock her and Jan Kozlowski down a peg or two. He heard fireworks and went down the steps onto the lawn. He kept walking and walking, ignoring the damp seeping into his leather brogues. The wet grass reminded him of the time he had taken one of his father’s best fishing rods without asking and got the line tangled in a hawthorn bush, down by the riverside, and the beating that came afterwards. Father was prone to flying off the handle. The punishments became a regular thing. His father could always find a reason. Rhona had him on a pedestal. Steven remembered the stupid candle ceremony they had always enacted. He had only experienced the dark side of his father’s personality.

  Steven lost track of time. The cold began to seep into his bones. He came across a wall and climbed over. He found himself, rather aptly, in the graveyard behind the church. He searched for his mother’s tombstone, but fate led him to Chris McVeigh’s plot. He sat on the grass for a long time thinking about what had happened. When he saw the light in the distance, he was drawn towards it. ‘Knock and the door will be opened,’ the scriptures said.

  That was how he came to be outside Pastor Martin’s house. It had been an uncharacteristic moment of weakness. A move he bitterly regretted. He had denied the alcohol inspired confession for as long as possible. Richard Watson wanted him to take the stand, but he didn’t want to admit any other mistakes, so he allowed Watson to present a version of the truth. Steven was indifferent to what people thought. Tania kept her side of the bargain, so he did the same.

  Steven had already spent nine long months in prison - staring at the ceiling, at oatmeal coloured paintwork, mid-brown furniture. Barred windows. Waiting for doors to be unlocked and locked. Traversing the narrow strip-lit landings. Watching his back. Trying to block out the incessant noise of the other inmates. Their swearing and fighting. The snarls of the hard men. The screams of the weak ones. The smell of sweat and urine; of pent-up testosterone; of fear. He’d survived, but only just. He tried to imagine spending the next twenty years in prison, cut off from female company and his former lifestyle. He never tired of replaying the times he spent with Tania, and his other conquests. It was the only thing that kept him sane.

  Maghaberry prison was home to nine hundred adult males. The remand houses had single-cell occupancy. Most of the inmates were ‘low lives’, institutionalised men, following a downward spiral. ‘No Hopers.’ Drug use and drug dealing were rife. Government inspectors had labelled the place, ‘One of the worst prisons in Europe.’ In ten hours’ time, he would be sentenced. When he came back, he would be moved to one of the cell blocks reserved for the long termers. Where there were two to a cell. The thought of listening to another person straining on the toilet was abhorrent.

  Gerry, an alcoholic shop owner from Newry, who’d knocked down and killed a fifteen-year-old boy, occupied the cell next door. Inside, you had ample time to reflect on past misdemeanours. Steven was tired of Gerry’s whining and complaining. Tired of the country music he played non-stop on his portable stereo player. During the day there was fierce competition with every inmate’s music blaring across the landing. You complained at your peril. Gerry would shrug his shoulders. “It’s prison. What d’you expect?”

  His neighbour wallowed in self-pity and talked about ending his life. Putting himself and his family out of their misery. Steven hoped he would get on with the notion. He was obliged to dine in the refectory, where the food was atrocious and Gerry sat opposite, eating with his mouth open. Steven spent as much time as possible in his cell.

  Remand prisoners didn’t have to work and were allowed a small portable TV and DVD player. There was an under-used prison library where he could borrow two books and a DVD every week. Although there were several thousand books, the selection of movies was limited. He rediscovered The Searchers, a John Wayne western his father had been fond of…. A tale of stolen cattle and Comanche redskins who burned the settler’s homesteads and kidnapped their women. Fucking them o
ver.

  He remembered the night of his father’s death, when the fire Rhona had accidentally started had swept through the hay barn and towards the stables. Orange flames lighting up the sky, like a giant candle. The night he had gained a hold over her. The night he watched the flames take hold, laughing inside. When the opportunity presented itself, he hadn’t hesitated.

  The Haslett family had known the Lavertys for years as fellow church goers, although the Lavertys were distinctly middle class. Tania Laverty was several years younger than he was. She had been an awkward teenager. The proverbial ugly duckling. Her father worked for the local council, something to do with road planning. It wasn’t until Tania brought Chris to church, as part of their wedding preparations, that Steven noticed the alluring woman she’d become. She was married three months later. He took an interest, stopping to chat with them after the Sunday service. Chris McVeigh was tall and broad shouldered, attracting admiring glances from other women when Tania paraded him on her arm. She fell pregnant soon afterwards. Steven had played a waiting game, striking up the occasional conversation, gaining their trust. At the time, he had already engaged the services of a female nursing assistant at the hospital.

  In the summer of ninety-four the Church had its annual fete and barbecue. His mother and Rhona were active participants in the Social Committee, and he was pressed into attending. He contrived to bump into Tania behind the marquee, when he saw her husband and son across the field, near the children’s play area. He remembered he had been wearing a white Armani shirt and a Panama hat to hide a bald patch, which, despite his best efforts, seemed intent on expanding. He had met with a Consultant in hair loss surgery and discussed a procedure that had a good chance of staying, if not reversing, the alopecia whilst he still had enough healthy follicles for an implant.

  For once it had been a good summer and the sun had shone all day. Steven remembered that Tania had been wearing a tight dress, accentuating her breasts and narrow waist. She had asked him about the possibility of finding work for herself at the hospital. He had heard on the grapevine that McVeigh’s fledgling security business was not doing well. He promised to discuss the matter with his sister, and they had swapped mobile numbers.

  He persuaded Rhona to transfer his assistant to another department, and Tania had started work four weeks later. He had played the long game, waiting three months before he made his first move, asking her to work late on some important paperwork for a board meeting. The first evening was all business. The next morning, he left a box of Belgian chocolates on her desk. He waited another two weeks before asking her again. This time she was rewarded with a bottle of white Bordeaux. Grand Puy Lacoste. The morning after their third late night, he left a primrose coloured, silk blouse wrapped in tissue paper. Rhona had been dispatched to purchase something on his behalf at ‘La Belle Femme’ in Ballylester. His sister had raised her eyebrows, but passed no comment except to say, ‘For the latest one, I presume?’

  Steven knew he was in with a chance of success when Tania arrived at work wearing the gifted blouse a week later. Most of the staff left at five thirty and any overnight patients were confined to the East wing. He remembered standing behind her chair, as Tania laboured over the needless presentation slides. Steven had rested his hands on her shoulders and fingered the sheer fabric tracing the curve of her clavicle.

  It had all come out. How Chris barely noticed her and was so wrapped up in his business. How they were no longer intimate. Steven had brushed the tears from her cheeks. Tania had stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck. Pressed her lips against his. He had wanted her there and then, across the desk. But he had resisted. Pulled back.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to rush you into anything. Perhaps next week we can have a chat, share a glass of wine, after we finish work?” he said.

  After she completed his notes for the next board meeting, they had relaxed on the consulting room couch, an Italian L shaped sofa in top grain leather. After two large glasses of wine and very little persuasion he had progressed to first base. “Are you willing to go further?” he had asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never been with anyone but Chris,” she had claimed.

  “It’s natural to be reluctant,” Steven had told her. “I respect your decision of course. Say you’ll stay behind next week. We don’t have to do any more than this, unless you want to?”

  He gave her the first two milligram yellow tablet at four o’clock on Thursday the third of October. He kept a note of her doses in a hidden folder on his phone. “You might want to take this. It might help you to relax if you’re feeling anxious, assuming we’re still on for later? We shouldn’t really drink too much alcohol when we have to drive home afterwards,” he had said.

  She never asked too many questions. The benzodiazepine began to do its work. Steven never pressed her over the weeks that followed. He needed it to be her decision. He wore a white lab coat over his naked body and probed her with his mouth and fingers. She never touched him, apart from kissing him on the lips.

  “This takes me back to my childhood. I used to love playing doctors and nurses,” Tania once giggled, the drugs making her giddy.

  “I’m sure no doctor ever made you feel like this.”

  Each time, she was rewarded. Rhona bought an assortment of expensive items and left them in a locked cupboard in his office. Tania asked for extra tablets on other days as her addiction grew. Within six months she had progressed from the yellow to an orange five milligram dose and was taking one home for the weekend. The memory made him smile.

  He had access to her medical records, a requirement for hospital employees, and ensured she had no history of asthma that could give rise to breathing difficulties. He also cautioned her against consuming alcohol for twenty-four hours afterwards, as this could be a fatal combination. He had no wish to cause her any permanent damage.

  Benzodiazepine, or diazepam to give its shorter generic, is highly lipophilic, dissolving more easily in oil than in water. The drug was often given as a gel-based injection to children, in order to sedate them, or to treat epilepsy. In tablet form the drug needed one to two hours to take effect, but, an injection worked much more rapidly.

  After six months, his patience wore thin. One of his colleagues in Sports Injury had a new nursing assistant who caught his attention. A diminutive, dark-skinned woman in her twenties, with gorgeous brown eyes and a tight ass that he was sure she deliberately swayed whenever she walked past. He had a meeting out of the office on the next Thursday he and Tania were due to meet. He told her he would be back by six pm, if she could wait?

  It had been six thirty before he returned.

  “You forgot to leave out my tablet,” were the first words she said.

  “Sorry I’m late. Maybe we’d better forget it? There won’t be time for the medicine to take effect and I need to be home by seven. Mother’s hosting a charity dinner.”

  “Please, Steven.”

  Tania had been frantic.

  “I could give you an injection - if you like. It’d work faster,” he had suggested.

  He made sure the door was locked and drew the blinds. He poured her a glass of water and she gulped it down, her hands shaking.

  “Try to relax. I’ll get everything ready as quickly as I can.”

  He got undressed in the annex. Unfolded a pristine lab coat and smoothed it over his body, pulling on latex gloves. He opened the foil and unwrapped the ten-milligram rectal tube. He stretched his gloved fingers forwards, touching her, circling his fingers, moving his body closer, until she felt him pressing against her from behind the starched fabric.

  The murder plan had been a spur of the moment decision. Tania thought he was doing it for her, for them, for their future. But, after her submission, he moved on, already planning the next conquest. McVeigh was ex-army, handy with his fists no doubt. Any scandal would have ruined things for him, personally and professionally. She went along with
the plan. By that time, she had been firmly in the grip of her addiction and would have done anything for the promise of the little orange pills.

  During his two hundred and eighty-seven days of custody, Steven had watched the same films several times over. Another of his favourites was Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. The classic Paul Newman and Robert Redford story of the Hole in the Wall Gang, bank and then train robbers. He enjoyed the seduction scene between the Sundance Kid and his lover, schoolteacher Etta Place, who reminded him of the Sports Injury assistant with her soft, brown ass. He loved the freeze-frame ending, when Butch and Sundance were tracked down by the relentless bounty hunter in the white hat and shot full of holes. There was something beautifully heroic about going out in a blaze of glory.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The courtroom was awash with officials. Viv looked on as men in suits, robes, wigs, and long-toed shoes streamed into the courtroom. Boxes of paperwork were carried in. Mobile phones scrutinised. The rectangular dock in the centre of the courtroom stood empty, the strips of pale-green glass between panelled beech-wood. Overhead, daylight filtered down from a recessed window.

  She watched a big-bosomed security guard, whose hair was scraped into a severe ponytail. The woman leaned against the wall next to the custody suite, chatting to two male security officers. The door into the dock was several paces from the custody suite. The guard with the big bust had a bunch of keys attached to her belt by a long, metal chain, as if someone might wrestle them from her. Viv didn’t think the woman would be capable of putting up much of a fight. Journalists took their places to watch the final act of the drama play out. Pete exchanged greetings with some of the local reporters. Mitch and Alice were already sitting in the front row, a short distance from the doorway where Doctor Steven Haslett would emerge for the last time. Mitch wore a navy suit and a blue, open necked shirt below his military-style haircut. His grandmother was wrapped in the same overcoat and scarf she had worn at Monday’s hearing.