Struggles of Psycho

by Rhyam O'Bryam

  ‘“Uh huh.” I let him hear the scepticism in my voice. “And don’t you think they believe they are also investing in an artist? If they found out you were painting over a photo, well, wouldn’t that disappoint your clients?”

  ‘“Ah. Well. I don’t know.”

  ‘“How much do they pay you for these?”

  ‘“That. Er. Would be a private matter. It varies.”

  ‘All the time I was talking, I was rummaging in my suitcase. Having found my Polaroid camera, I stepped up to the easel very quickly and took a picture. The flash startled Ruben.

  ‘“What? What are you doing?”

  ‘“In a little over three weeks, I inherit the farm. I want you to leave without trouble. You can start packing up your painting equipment now, since I want that bed. You won’t cause trouble over this, will you, Rube?” I shook the Polaroid dry. He got the message.

  ‘“Where will I go? I’ve nowhere else.”

  ‘“Not my concern.” With that, I left him. Better to draw a firm line than allow a discussion. He’d wriggle and wriggle and never be gone. I just knew that.

  ‘Back downstairs, still carrying my cases (not wanting to leave them with Rube), I walked across the lounge carpet until I sat opposite my uncle and his woman… Deirdre, was it?

  ‘“Where’s Rube?” asked Simon.

  ‘“Packing up his art gear.”

  ‘“What the hell!” My uncle got up, heavily, and with a scowl in my direction, stood at the door. “Rube! You don’t have to do that. Don’t listen to the brat.”

  ‘“She has to sleep somewhere,” came the faint reply.

  ‘“Fuck her!” Then he turned back to me. “Fuck you, Amy. Coming in here and upsetting my friends. I told you. Your bed is in the castle.”

  ‘“Chill out, Simon, you’ll upset the girl.” Deirdre offered me a smile. And she rolled her eyes in the direction of my uncle, as if to say not to mind him.

  ‘I could see that prising my uncle off this estate was going to be hard. And that now was not the time to start a decisive confrontation. I needed to wait three more weeks to inherit the property and then perhaps start legal proceedings. Or arrange something more physical.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘You said he tried to poison you?’ McCarthy had turned back a couple of pages in her notes.

  ‘I’m coming to that.’ Philips sounded a little exasperated that she couldn’t tell the story at her own pace. ‘First of all, though, when I was sitting on Oliver’s bed later that night, I made safe my new Polaroid by unpicking the lining of my coat. It was just as well. I woke up during the night and I knew someone was in my room.

  ‘He was very stealthy, surprisingly so. But my heart was beating fast. I’d lurched out of a dream into a nightmare. I had no idea how long he’d been there and I instantly resolved to get a locksmith over in the morning to fit me a new lock on the door.

  ‘“Go away,” I tried, with some success, to keep my voice calm.

  ‘He stood up from where he had been crouched in the shadows around my bags. A black shadow. It was terrifying, because he could have killed me and perhaps gotten away with it. Who would come asking after me if I disappeared? And we had a lot of private land in which a body could be buried for ever.

  ‘Fortunately, because either he wasn’t the type to break the law in a serious way or because he just didn’t know enough about me and my relationships, Ruben – for that’s who it was – simply left.

  ‘“Close the door behind you.” I said this as much to assert my control of the situation as because I wanted the door closed. In fact, the corridor light was rather reassuring. He did so.

  ‘The next couple of weeks were probably the worst of my life. My uncle was in such a foul mood around me. Sometimes he ignored me. Most of the time, he shouted at me and his theme was that I was useless and in the way. In the way of what, I couldn’t tell you because none of them did anything. They ate and drank, presumably at my expense, and at the weekends went to a horse racing event.

  ‘I, on the other hand, spent my time more productively. I rang Mike and arranged for him to come when the three weeks were up. When he heard of what was happening here, he was very keen to play the gallant hero. I also rang the family solicitor and confirmed the legal situation, which is that the property could be transferred to me once I turned eighteen. Would I like the relevant documents to be drawn up? I certainly would. And I made the appointment.

  ‘I have to admit that I underestimated my uncle. The longer he tolerated my presence, the more I believed that his bark was worse than his bite. And I even went so far during one argument as to tell him that I would expect him to leave within the month.

  ‘We generally ate together. It was Deirdre who did the cooking for the other two and while Simon always picked fights with me at the dinner table, or rudely ignored me, I wasn’t excluded.

  ‘On the day I inherited the estate the tone suddenly changed. Deirdre made a cake for my birthday and fish soup for dinner. As always, two bottles of red wine stood open on the table and Deirdre had just served everyone a bowl, when Ruben stood up and called her away. “Come outside a moment, Dee, please.”

  ‘“Oh, Simon, what? We should eat while it’s hot.”

  ‘“It won’t take long. Come on.”

  ‘“For heaven’s sake.” But she got up and they went outside.

  ‘I dipped my spoon in the soup and raised it to blow on it.

  ‘“Stop! Don’t!” Ruben spoke urgently, although in a whisper. I noticed immediately that he hadn’t touched his spoon and I lowered mine.

  ‘“He didn’t poison it?”

  ‘“Rat poison. Black powder. Zinc phosphide.”

  ‘“You know what my mother’s last words to me were?”

  ‘“No?”

  ‘“She said, ‘Trust no one.’ And she was right. Not even her own brother.”

  ‘“Quickly, pour it down the sink.”

  ‘As soon as I’d done so, Ruben hurled the table to the ground, sending the pot, the wine and bowls crashing. Then he gave me a wink, before shouting, “Dinner’s off! Amy’s evicting me, so she says. Well, screw her birthday!”

  ‘The other two came running back in, Deirdre distraught, brown eyes moist with unhappiness, my uncle eager. “Oh, Ruben. You’ve ruined it.”

  ‘Ruben gave a kick at an upturned bowl. “No. She’s the one who has ruined it. She’s ruined everything. And you’ll be gone in a week too.” With that he stormed upstairs, while Deirdre and I cleaned up.

  ‘“I’m so sorry, Amy,” said Deirdre. “I really wanted you to have a nice evening.”

  ‘“Oh, it’s fine, Deirdre and I appreciate your efforts, the soup was very nice.”

  ‘“You managed to drink some, before Ruben’s outburst?” asked my uncle. The utterly heartless bastard.

  ‘“Every drop of my bowl.” I patted Deirdre’s arm. “It was lovely.”

  Simon, very pleased with himself, opened a new bottle.

  ‘“Well, in any case, here’s all we need for a celebration.”

  ‘Later, he even sang Happy Birthday when the cake was produced. The hypocrite. I could tell he was watching me, waiting for the poison to show its effects. I looked it up later: very, very horrible; very painful. If you’ve ingested enough, they can’t save you even in intensive care. It would have been an awful, absolutely awful way to die: in agony and knowing that nothing could be done to reverse the poison, knowing you would soon be dead. Did you ever have a case in which someone was murdered with rat poison, Superintendent?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘This is Simon… Fitzmaurice?’ asked McCarthy.

  ‘Correct.’

  My partner glanced at me and I gave a faint nod. We had to interview Simon Fitzmaurice.

  ‘Of course I would have loved to have gotten a hold over him, so I discreetly salvaged some of the soup from the bottom of the pot, spooning it into an old jam jar for want of anything better. Then I needed to find the source
of the poison, the packet, or whatever it had come in and somehow link it to my uncle. Perhaps it would have his fingerprints on the container. But try as I could the following weekend, when I knew they would have gone racing, I could find no rat poison in the bins, the stores, or the stables, or the castle. Perhaps the packet was in his room, which was locked, but I never did get the evidence I needed to make him back down.

  ‘Which left me basically, having to guard myself and prepare a plan for dealing with my uncle.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  ‘This is how Mike came to the farm for the first time. As I told you, I rang him. Without holding back on anything, I told him all about my problem with my uncle and his friends and that my uncle had tried to poison me. To flatter Mike, I said that my situation made me feel like I was Penelope facing the suitors and that I needed him to be Odysseus, to come and rescue me and dish out vengeance on my behalf.’ Amy Philips paused and held my eye. ‘You appreciate the allusion, Superintendent?’

  ‘Not really. Can you explain it for us?’ The education I had obtained from the Christian Brothers school in Carlow was nothing to complain about, but clearly, we hadn’t the same advantages of a private school in England, where it was assumed you knew the classics.

  ‘Certainly. You know the story of Odysseus? Or Ulysses. Everyone thinks of it as a story of a sailor and his adventures. But when I read it, I saw at once that the story was really about revenge and all the curious events of the voyages of Odysseus are just sub-plots to tease us and delay the final reckoning.

  ‘At the end of the Odyssey our hero returns and slaughters the suitors who have been living at his expense and have tried to marry his wife – Penelope – and murder his son.’

  McCarthy clicked her pen on and off a couple of times before looking up at Philips. ‘So you wanted Mike to come over and kill your uncle?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought it through as far as that. But I was looking for an opportunity to get revenge on my uncle as well as kick him out. And my problem was that I had no allies at the farm. In fact, I was completely alone both in Ireland and in the world. At the time I picked up the phone, my relationship with Mike was a mess. I’d neglected him for Ivy and, according to his letters and poems, broken his heart.

  ‘The truth was, I rather despised him. The boy who was easily led, who had no moral centre, but who lacked the courage to be a villain, had grown into a young man with exactly the same pathetic qualities. Plus, he had developed a masochistic sexuality that I had some responsibility for.

  ‘In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have had to bother dealing with Mike. But in this world, one has to make compromises. And having Mike around again was much less of an evil than my uncle ruling my life and bank account unchallenged.

  ‘Mike arrived on the Saturday afternoon following that awful birthday party. I met him at the railway station and suffered his hugs and sincere expressions of sympathy for my plight.

  ‘“I’m so glad you are all right,” he said. “My life wouldn’t have been worth living if you were gone from it.”

  ‘“Thanks, Mike, I knew I could count on you. Now, let’s hurry, the solicitor is expecting us.”

  ‘I took him along as a witness to the formal assignment of the property to me. The solicitor’s company had handled our family’s affairs for more than a generation and their filing cabinet had a whole section with our papers. The deeds to the farm and castle were bound up in ribbon in a thick bundle that went back to medieval parchments.

  ‘Wide-eyed, Mike put his name down on the most recent page of a fat file of papers, which the solicitor tied up tightly in red ribbon.’ Amy Philips smiled at me. ‘I bet you haven’t got that little piece of the puzzle yet, have you Superintendent? I’ll give you that for free.’

  Every time Philips drew explicit attention to the fact I was hunting for evidence for a murder charge to stick, I felt a chill and my stomach clenched. If she really knew what she was doing, if she was a step ahead of me all the time, then I’d be in big trouble with the DPP. For while I was certain she had killed Michael Patterson in cold blood, I needed her to slip up in order that I could prove it.

  Yet, the more I saw of her, the more I began to believe that she never slipped up. That she was always in control of herself and everyone around her. I shook my head. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, shouldn’t you take a look at that document? Mike’s signature on my property. Perhaps you’ll find a motive there?’

  There was no need to let her dominate the agenda. And fortunately, I had McCarthy at my side. There was no way Philips could run rings around her. My partner tapped her pen on the table. ‘Just carry on. You can try to send us off on wild goose chases later.’

  Amy Philips laughed aloud. ‘Very well. Next, I took a copy of these deeds over to the garda station. It wasn’t long before I realised that this was a mistake and might later work against me if I had to – as I anticipated – use force to evict my uncle. For the guards weren’t at all sympathetic. I was brought to see a detective sergeant. Byrne was his name. You might remember him, Superintendent. He was here before you.’

  I shrugged, although the name was, in fact, familiar.

  ‘The problem was, he was my uncle’s age and he knew all about the family. I’d say Byrne was probably friends with Simon. We were practically run out of the station. “Get away out of that nonsense!” were his exact words.

  ‘I could see no way of getting an eviction order. But it’s like my mother said, trust no one. Not the police, certainly.’ Philips paused to let this sink in. ‘So I had to fall back on my own resources. Step one was to introduce Mike into the picture.

  ‘You can imagine the scene, early Saturday evening. You know my living room. A sofa, with Deirdre and Simon on it, drinking wine. Simon was reading a horse racing paper, Deirdre was tipsy and mostly just rubbing herself against my uncle. Ruben, sitting in an arm chair, was doing the crossword. Our grandfather clock ticked slowly and there was some warmth from a log fire (although, as usual, they had let the supply of logs diminish to the point that there were none left in the house).

  ‘“Hello,”‘ I said, on coming in. ‘“This is Mike, my boyfriend.”

  ‘“Who the hell…?” My uncle sprang to his feet, rapidly turning red.

  ‘“Hello, old chap,” said Mike calmly, but he did not offer his hand.

  ‘“Welcome.” Ruben did not bother to get up and barely lifted his eyes before returning to his crossword.

  ‘“You’re too young to have a boyfriend. And what’s he doing here, anyway, without my permission?”

  ‘“Firstly,” I began to walk around the room, ‘“I’m eighteen as of last week. I’ve been old enough to have sex, legally that is, for two years. Secondly, this is my farm, my property and although you would prefer me dead...” I had reached a small table on which stood a china vase with some wilted, purple asters. To emphasise my words, I pushed the vase to the floor, but unfortunately it bounced rather than broke. Our carpet was threadbare but evidently not bare enough. “I don’t have to ask you for permission to bring people here. Thirdly, Mike, though he may not look it, is capable of immense violence and he is here to hurt you if you don’t leave.”

  ‘“I’m afraid I’m something of a psychopath,” added Mike from the door. Now, you can imagine, it took all my effort not to burst out laughing. The scrawny young man in a brown cord jacket was hardly intimidating. But he had grown his hair somewhat since school and could possibly have a Charles Manson air about his eyes, if you didn’t know what a weak person he really was.

  ‘“Oh, my.” Deirdre suddenly stiffened and turned to focus on Mike. Again it struck me how like Ivy she was when you couldn’t see the wrinkles around her eyes and her much fleshier face.

  ‘“Mike, this one is ‘the Rube’. I believe he’s leaving in the morning, so there won’t be any trouble with him.” I had moved behind Ruben’s chair and I now leaned in close to his ear. “Will there?”

  ‘“That’s correc
t,” Ruben flinched away from me.

  ‘“Now wait a minute,” said my uncle, striving for an authoritative tone, though in fact his voice was a little high. “I decide who gets to stay and who leaves. Rube, you’re not going anywhere. Certainly not because some little brat and her creepy boyfriend try to order you out.”

  ‘“It’s OK, Simon. I really should be moving on.”

  ‘“No. No, I insist. You’ve at least two commissions to finish, haven’t you?”

  ‘Ruben coloured. then shrugged. “Ah. I’ve been winding those down, actually. You see, the People’s College would like an art appreciation teacher. I was going to move back to Dublin.”

  ‘Simon kicked the leg of the dining table hard, causing the crockery on it to rattle. “Fuck that! Art appreciation? You wouldn’t know good art from bad unless it had a price tag on it. What else is going on here that I don’t know about. Dee? Have you got any news for me?”

  ‘His lover looked startled and unhappy to be the centre of attention. “Let’s be friends,” she muttered. “Why don’t we all be friends?”

  ‘Mike stepped forward, grinning and I could see he was about to say something to challenge Deirdre. But I shook my head. The less he spoke the better. So long as my uncle thought there was a chance he really was a psychopath, the more likely we’d be able to winkle my relative out.

  ‘Obedient, as always, Mike stopped, moved over to the wall and leaned against it, sneering at the room. That was much better.

  ‘I picked up the vase and stood it on the table again, leaving behind the fallen flowers and a dark, wet patch on the carpet. After all, this was my property: perhaps I shouldn’t break it, even to prove a point. “What about your news, Uncle? Where will you be in a month’s time?”

  ‘“Right here.”

  ‘“Wrong.” With a pat for the thinning spot on the back of Ruben’s head (which caused him to flinch), I resumed my walk. “I know about the rat poison.” A glance at Uncle’s stunned response confirmed everything. “And two people can play at that game. Especially with Mike here. He’d do anything for me. Wouldn’t you, Mike?”