Struggles of Psycho

by Rhyam O'Bryam

  ‘Welcome, Superintendent Doyle, take a seat.’ Her voice, for example, placed her as being from the well-heeled communities to the south of Dublin. I got a smile, from under the fringe of an expensive, blonde haircut that was so perfectly cut that she could have been readying herself to be on television, reading the news perhaps. ‘Murder?’ She had the file in her hands and got straight to the point. I admired that.

  I met her gaze. ‘I know there isn’t enough evidence, yet. But it’s her manner at interview.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She’s very unusual. Cold and calculating. Very matter-of-fact about the death of a friend, also about her past relationship with him. Detached. Not a bit traumatised. Acting like she is much cleverer than all of use. I’m convinced she’s lying.’

  ‘Who is your partner on this?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant McCarthy.’

  ‘Orla McCarthy?’

  It was a little surprising that the DPP knew McCarthy. I nodded.

  ‘What does she think?’

  ‘She agrees with me. Murder.’

  ‘But no evidence.’

  ‘No. Just the way the suspect is acting; the way she comes across.’

  ‘OK.’ O’Reilly looked thoughtful. ‘I trust your experience and judgment. And McCarthy is no fool. So where are you going to find the evidence?’

  This statement of confidence warmed me. And for a moment it flashed across my mind that despite the DPP’s background, I could like her. It would be interesting to meet her outside the role of her job. What kind of husband did she have? Such thoughts came unbidden, were not wanted and I dismissed them.

  ‘I don’t think it possible to stab someone through the heart in the way she describes. I think the needle would bend on the ribs.’

  ‘Can you get an expert to demonstrate that?’

  ‘We’re on it.’ And we were. That was another task on McCarthy’s list.

  ‘And we are still waiting on pathology?’ The DPP looked back on the file.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long now.’

  ‘Why did you charge her first? Did she try to leave?’

  ‘Curiously, no. She’s been in no hurry at all. In fact, it was a sense that she was deliberately stringing us along and wasting our time that made me act.’

  ‘What else? Motive?’

  I took a breath. ‘Not strong enough for murder. They were lovers, some time ago, it seems. She was his mistress, in the BDSM sense.’

  ‘Clarify, please.’

  ‘Philips claims she tied him up and so on. They played those kinds of sex games. But there’s something else that might be do with her motive. She had a computer, with a lot of embarrassing sexual stuff, so she says. Before she rang the guards, she dumped it in the river.’

  With a shake of her head, the DPP leaned back. ‘That’s suspicious all right. But with no evidence and no motive, this isn’t going to make it to a murder trial. I’m surprised at you, Superintendent. You must have something more?’

  ‘There’s a missing person, Ivy Patterson, the victim’s sister. I think that the victim, Michael, confronted Philips with something to do with Ivy and she murdered him, then turned herself in, thinking she’d get away with self-defence.’

  ‘Which she will, unless you turn up something much more specific. Even supposing the lab backs you up and shows he wasn’t killed in a scuffle, without a motive a jury are not going to call it murder.’

  ‘I know.’ And sitting in the DPP’s office, I suddenly experienced a wave of doubt. What if Amy Philips was setting me up for a fall? What if everything she had said was true? I fought off the feeling. There was definitely something wrong. Amy Philips was lying to us.

  ‘Look, Doyle, you’ve a lot of experience. I’ll accept your judgment of the suspect. But I tell you this: if a new appointee came in here with so flimsy a case, I’d tell them to drop murder for manslaughter.’

  She paused but I had no response. What could I say?

  ‘Get back to her and get a confession. Or find the missing person. For now, I’ll back you up on the murder charge.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ I stood up.

  ‘And, Doyle,’ she dropped the folder into her “out” tray.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Nothing to the press.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Back in Wexford, I caught up with McCarthy at my office.

  ‘How did it go with the DPP?’ she asked as she came in, taking heavily to the one other chair on the far side of my desk.

  ‘We don’t have anything, so she was annoyed. But willing to go ahead with murder, for now.’

  ‘Good on her.’

  ‘She seemed to know you?’ I looked at my colleague, who nodded.

  ‘Yeah, she was the barrister for us on the McGlinty case.’

  McCarthy had been on the team that had solved a missing person case as a murder, two years back.

  ‘Well, that helped. O’Reilly has confidence in us. I liked that. Better than Gaughan. He always looked at me as if he didn’t believe a word I was saying.’

  The chair McCarthy was on could turn and she began swinging from side to side. Then she lifted her blue eyes to mine. ‘Shall we get her back in the interview room then?’

  ‘Yeah. We need a motive and we need the missing Ivy Patterson.’

  ‘Right.’

  ***

  Perhaps I was reading too much into her sour expression, but it seemed to me that when Amy Philips entered the white, sparse interview room, she was guarded, ready to defend herself from us.

  ‘Ms Philips,’ I began as she seated herself opposite us. ‘Let me remind you that whatever you say will be taken down in writing and may be given in evidence.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I’ve nothing to hide. And in spite of this new complication, I’m actually looking forward to talking to you.’

  ‘Complication?’ asked McCarthy.

  ‘The fact you’ve charged me with murder.’

  No one spoke.

  ‘Did you call your lawyer?’ I said at last.

  ‘I did. He’ll be here an hour before the court hearing. He advised me not to speak to you until he was present, but as I said, I’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘All right then,’ I began, pleased that we might be able to go swiftly. Legal advisors always made things slow, sometimes intervening just to be seen to be worth their fees. ‘I’d like to understand your relationship with the victim better.’ I looked at my notes. ‘You said you formed a relationship with Michael Patterson while on holiday with his family. And that you dated for two years?’

  She smiled, patronizingly. ‘Yes, Superintendent, but what’s important about those years is not Mike, but Ivy.’

  McCarthy looked up. ‘Why important?’

  ‘Because for me, this was still all about Ivy. Ivy was intriguing. She was a challenge. She had a moral backbone but also a strong sense of shame. Not just for herself but also for her brother. You know where I’m going with this?’

  As it happened, I didn’t, but both McCarthy and I nodded. Then my partner said, ‘The Polaroids.’ Of course.

  ‘Ivy started her lower sixth year as though she were turning over a new leaf. She was sixteen and I was seventeen, in my final year. Ivy joined the hockey club and the players’ society, amateur dramatics.’ Philips looked across to McCarthy as she added this explanation. ‘And she kept away from me. It was noticeable. I felt very hurt, insulted and angry. Of course, I remembered my mother’s dying words and reminded myself I could not trust anyone.

  ‘Not even Ivy. But while she might have wanted to finish with me, I wasn’t done with her.

  ‘One evening, when she was coming off the hockey field – it must have been a Wednesday – I intercepted her. Standing close to her, I was very aware of her skin, flushed with exertion, and the litheness of her petite figure. The skirt of the school’s hockey kit was very short.

  ‘“Oh, hi, Ivy,” I said, “can I have a word?”

/>   ‘“Hi Amy, how nice to see you,” she said, falsely, then dropped her eyes. “But I’m busy just now.”

  ‘“Take this, Ivy, read it carefully and come up to my room tonight.” I handed her an envelope.

  ‘“I…” It was easy to see she simply wanted to throw it to the ground. “I’ll read it, Amy, but I won’t be able to call up to you tonight, we have rehearsals.”

  ‘“Afterwards. I’ll expect you at eight.” And I turned away feeling triumphant. Try as she might to cut me out of her life, she wouldn’t be able to ignore my note. It ran something like this:

  Ivy. This is a picture of your brother, Michael Patterson, having sex with a girl who is just fifteen years old. This is illegal. If the police had this picture and knew the details, they would arrest him and jail him. And the word would go out about him. They don’t treat child rapists well in jail.

  You know me and you know I carry out everything I say I will. Well. Unless you change your manner towards me, I will go to the police. I will go to the police.

  ‘It did the trick. That evening there was a soft, hesitant, knock on the door.

  ‘“Who is it?”

  ‘“It’s me.” She sounded terrible, shaken.

  ‘“Come in.”

  ‘Again, I was struck by how well she looked. This despite teary eyes and despite a pale, sickly-looking face. Ivy was wearing a brown cashmere sweater over a near-black skirt and brown tights. The outline of her breasts in particular caught my attention. She was becoming a real beauty.

  ‘Although hesitant, she raised her voice. “What do you want, Amy?”

  ‘“Close the door. Sit beside me.” I patted the bed.

  ‘“I prefer to stand.” She did, at least, push the door shut.

  ‘“Ivy. We can do this in an easy way, or a hard way.”

  ‘“What do you want?” she repeated, hostile.

  ‘I raised a hand and tapped my fingers as I listed my demands. “Firstly, you have to be my friend once more, so that everyone can see it. Secondly, you have to be my girlfriend, secretly.”

  Amy Philips was animated, clearly enthusiastic about telling her story. Her eyes flashed as she caught mine and she gave a slight nod, as if I had asked her, did Ivy give in to her demands.

  ‘It was a turning point, Superintendent. I had put my cards on the table and really, she should have walked away and called my bluff. At least, I think it was a bluff. I don’t know what I would have done. The idea of going to the police was not appealing, mainly because of the immense amount of time it would waste. But on the other hand, I wouldn’t have minded Mike going to jail. He was being a pain. Letters every day that got more and more whiny when I didn’t write back.

  ‘Instead, Ivy hesitated, and I knew she was lost.

  ‘“Don’t fight me, Ivy. It will end very badly for Mike. Now, sit here.”

  ‘As though a puppet, she took a jerky step forward. Then another. I had to pull her down and she sat beside me, tears running down her cheeks. I touched one, it was warm. “It’s not so bad, Ivy, I’ll be kind to you. You’ll see. And it will all be all right in the end.”

  ‘“Why, Amy? Why? What did I ever do to you? I was your friend.”

  ‘“No one will ever be my friend.” With that, I began to undo her cardigan buttons. Ivy didn’t pull away, but she did draw a terribly laboured breath, accompanied by a mighty shudder that ran through her whole body.

  ‘When I pulled down her cardigan, behind her back, it trapped her arms. Of course, she could have wriggled out but she didn’t move. And the sight of her, slightly constrained in this way, knowing that I would soon be cupping her sweet breasts in my hands, just drove me wild.’

  Amy Philips shook her head, smiled slightly to herself and sighed. ‘This moment was probably the high point of my life.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘There is nothing like the first moment of surrender. Nothing. It’s like passing through a one-way door and entering a whole new world. Ivy sensed this and I knew it. Right down to the tips of my fingers, I felt ecstatic. She was in my hands, literally.

  ‘At first, I didn’t say anything. I was too caught up in the intensity of the moment. Undoing her blouse, pulling it downwards too, to further trap her hands. Ivy had amazingly soft skin and I ran the back of my fingers all over her, relishing the feeling. Then I unclipped her bra and explored her breasts.

  ‘I circled her right nipple with my fingertip, until it rose. In my head, I could hear my mother, singing Round and Round the Garden. Then the left. Then I grabbed them both and squeezed hard, suddenly wanting to hurt her.’

  ‘God.’ McCarthy let out a deep breath. ‘Here we are again.’

  ‘Can we just say you began a sexual relationship with Ivy Patterson?’ I offered.

  Amy Philips leaned back with a smile and raising a finger, shook it. ‘No, no. I’m coming to something important. You see, it wasn’t long before I had laid Ivy out on the bed with her tights pulled down to her ankles. And as I brought my hand up between her soft thighs, I was astonished. Even before I touched her sex, I could feel an intense heat coming from it. When I did place a finger in her, she shuddered from head to toe. Despite her tears, Ivy Patterson was enjoying this. She was soaking wet and the scent of her arousal filled my room.’

  Our suspect looked up, triumphant, as if to say, “There you are”.

  McCarthy frowned. ‘If you are trying to say that she was consenting to your actions, then you are wrong, legally speaking. Blackmail means it was non-consensual. You’ve just admitted to committing two crimes that day.’

  ‘I’m trying to explain my relationship with Ivy and how she came to live with me for years. This isn’t Hollywood. Boy meets girl, love, marriage. This is life and it’s my life in particular. I cannot trust anyone. But nor do I want to be alone. What else then, for me, than a lover who is in my power? Who hates being enslaved but at the same time, is thrilled by it?

  ‘Back then I didn’t know anything about mistress-slave relationships. I was quite naive in fact. But I had managed to make the first step on that road by myself, intuitively. Somehow, I’d found the right person. And somehow too, I’d struck upon just the right combination of sexual pleasure and forceful command.’

  ‘Blackmail, you mean,’ I pointed out.

  Philips gestured with evident lack of concern. ‘Ivy had an orgasm, there on my bed, arms trapped, ankles bound. Almost certainly her first. And the experience marked her for life. I pity the men – and there weren’t too many – she met in later years. They put Ivy on a pedestal. They will have been princes making love to their princess. And I bet she got nothing from that at all.’ Philips snorted with derision. ‘Ivy needed submission. Later, to be bound. To be whipped. But we can come to that.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ McCarthy sounded disgusted.

  ‘Don’t you think so?’ Another long look first directed to McCarthy. Then to me. The silence grew. ‘What motive have you attributed to me for the murder of Mike?’

  Neither of us answered, but I felt a chill run through me, as though I were a rabbit and sensed an eagle, high above, with its eye on me.

  ‘That wasn’t a rhetorical question, Superintendent. Please, tell me, why do you think I wanted to kill Mike?’

  My mouth felt dry. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Good.’ Philips leaned in close. ‘Because I don’t have a reason. But if I did, don’t you think it would have something to do with my relationships with Mike and Ivy? I was having sex with both of them, on and off, throughout my life. Not that Mike mattered to me, except to allow me to learn new tricks for Ivy.’

  ‘Mike was jealous?’ I offered. What was Amy Philips doing? She was aware we were looking for a motive, that we didn’t have one. Probably, she knew how important that was for our case. Why then would she tease us by implying she might have one? Where was she taking us?

  ‘Of course, at various points in my life, Mike has been jealous to the point of insanity. It definitely was a fac
tor in tipping him over the edge that night at my house. But at first, Ivy and I kept our relationship secret from him.

  ‘Can you imagine our weekends? Mike had his first car and was studying engineering or something at Bristol University. He would come pick us all up and take us to town, for a meal or a film. If it were a film, I’d want to sit next to Ivy, she would try to get Mike in between us and Mike would want to sit next to me. If he could, he’d put his arm around me and grope my breast from the far side, where he thought Ivy couldn’t see.

  ‘Of course, she knew. And it must have been hard for her, to see her brother so infatuated with me and so unaware that she and I were embarked on a sexual journey. He was oblivious of course and didn’t even notice the teary eyes and deep sighs of his sister.’

  ‘Let’s backtrack a second.’ McCarthy looked up from her notes, blue eyes cold and hard. It was a relief to look at her honest, open face, after concentrating so long on the unreadable, intense expressions of Amy Philips. ‘Didn’t Ivy try to find those photographs and take them back? Or just call the police? Blackmail is a crime, you know.’

  ‘Ivy was interesting. As she always was. One the one hand, she hated this new world I’d brought her into. When she saw me in the corridors of the school, she blushed a delightful red and tried to avoid me. But I made her drop hockey and theatre, to spend time with me. We’d sit on a damp bench, piles of orange leaves on the grass nearby, watching distant figures running around the track. And even if I couldn’t risk touching her (other girls came and went), I would enjoy myself.

  ‘“Ivy,” I would ask, “do you like me touching your breasts and sex?”

  ‘“No. I hate it. It makes me feel dirty and ashamed. And disgusted.”

  ‘“But when I feel you, you are always so wet. Why is that?”

  ‘And Ivy would become tearful, shaking her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. It’s just natural; it’s just my body.”