Guilty

by Siobhan MacDonald

  Whatever happened about Osaka, it seemed unlikely that Luke would make this year’s trip to Thailand. Every year he expected Hugh to be the one to pull out, expecting him to balk at forfeiting a family holiday in favour of the programme. And if Miriam ever found out about his misadventure in Railay Beach, he’d never be allowed to go again.

  Unknown to Miriam, after they finished work in Thai Unit 3, Hugh went rock climbing in Railay Beach. Freestyle rock climbing, without ropes. As she was fond of recounting, she and Hugh had children on the condition he gave up dangerous sport. Away from home, Hugh wavered. Last year he’d taken a tumble. Luckily, he wasn’t that high when it happened. He’d landed on soft sand but Luke and Johnny were sworn to secrecy.

  Typically by this time of year, Luke, Hugh and Johnny would be organised. They’d have had their night in his basement. It was usually a laugh, the night fuelled by beer, curry and lots of banter. The three of them would plan their trip.

  It took Luke a good three hours to make good the damage that Duffy had done. He gathered up eighteen tapes. He knotted the black bin liner and looked at it, thinking. Why not use St Matthew’s incinerator? The videos were hospital-related after all. They were not personal material, so it was hardly an abuse of hospital facilities.

  The chicken and broccoli bake was ready when Wendy reappeared with a newspaper in hand. She sat at the table, next to Nina, who was typing with both thumbs on her phone. Considering what she’d been through, Nina seemed to be doing OK. Luke didn’t allow himself to dwell on how differently things might have turned out if Terence hadn’t called that night. He hadn’t told anyone Terence had even been here. He didn’t want to draw the man any deeper into the murky goings-on of Crow Hall.

  Wendy smoothed out the paper. ‘Looks like Alison made the front page of all the papers by what I can see out there on the hall table. Let’s see what this one says.’ Lowering her glasses from the top of her head, she set them on her nose, moved aside the cutlery that Nina had set, and smoothed the newspaper across the table. Clearing her throat, she started.

  ‘Family reunion ends in tragedy,’ she read aloud. ‘Flood-hit communities the length and breadth of lakeside counties are reeling at the tragic news that they have lost one of their most popular ministerial representatives in years. In a cruel irony, Independent minister, Alison Forde-Thompson, met her untimely death late Thursday night – an apparent victim of the flooding – the effects of which she’d worked tirelessly to mitigate in recent weeks.’

  Wendy stopped and looked over the rim of her glasses. ‘Setting the tone for sainthood,’ she said. Nina looked up from her phone and nodded in agreement.

  Wendy continued:

  ‘On Thursday night last, residents of High Shore Road reported hearing an explosion sometime close to 10.45 p.m. Other residents reported seeing flames and plumes of smoke and alerted the fire services. Given the severe weather conditions that night, the flames were short-lived and without an exact location the already stretched fire brigade were unable to locate the source of the explosion. It was only when daylight broke in the early hours of the following morning that a local farmer noticed what appeared to be the burnt-out shell of a car. It was at the bottom of a gully on the notoriously treacherous bend on High Shore Road. With that section of road already under water, initial investigations suggest that the car lost control on the bend, ploughing its way through a crash barrier already unstable with the rains. The car tumbled unhindered to the bottom of the two-hundred foot gully …’

  Wendy broke off and looked at Luke.

  ‘Don’t you just love the way they use that phrase “the car lost control” – like the car had a mind of its own? Alison always did drive way too fast, didn’t she?’ Wendy shook her head.

  ‘Tragically, Minister Forde-Thompson had just finished a family dinner to celebrate her daughter’s return home. The young woman had returned earlier that day from a gap-holiday in Australia.’

  Wendy looked up again. ‘Seriously, Luke, I don’t get why Alison couldn’t have stayed here with you both on Nina’s first night home. Why did she have to leave and take herself off to creepy Crow Hall?’

  ‘I thought you might ask that,’ Luke replied.

  Full Disclosure

  ‘A lot of things happened that night.’

  Luke sat down.

  Wendy gave him her full attention. ‘Go on then. Tell me. The two of you are giving me the creeps the way you’re looking at me.’

  Luke began. ‘To understand what happened here that night, I have to tell you another story. And that story started back fifteen years ago.’ He snatched a glance at Nina. ‘I know we’ve been through this. But it may not hurt you to hear it again.’

  ‘That’s all right, Dad.’ Nina looked up from her phone.

  Six nights earlier, as Nina hugged her hot-water bottle, Luke had attempted to account for Sophie’s actions. Given Nina’s ordeal that night, he had no idea how much she’d taken in. Since then, he’d caught her looking strangely at him, always when she thought he wasn’t looking. He had yet to hear her judgement on what he’d done.

  As succinctly as he could, he started by telling Wendy that he’d been attending a therapist. He recounted how he’d been in a hit-and-run in which a young child, Maisie Sweetman, had been killed. He explained that Alison had been the driver of the car. Wendy tensed with shock.

  He trotted out the wretched details. He explained his reason for not owning up to the crime. Namely, his fear that Nina’s adoption would fall through. He said this as much for Nina’s ears as Wendy’s. He wanted more than anything for Nina to understand his actions.

  ‘Oh my God, Luke.’ Wendy sat back. ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘What happened wasn’t just Alison’s doing,’ he added quickly. ‘I should have checked the child. I should have called an ambulance. I should have called the police.’

  ‘I know. I hear you. But I also know that Alison could be a difficult woman.’

  ‘Oh, she was,’ said Nina, quietly. ‘And she never loved me. I wasn’t what she wanted. Maybe she tried, I don’t know …’ She broke off.

  ‘It was nothing to do with you, Nina,’ said Wendy, firmly. ‘You were a gorgeous, smart, funny little girl when you arrived from Russia. Anyone would have been delighted to be your mother. I know I would.’

  ‘I dunno about that, Wendy. I was a bit of a geek.’

  ‘But geeks are cool, right?’ Wendy lifted her hand to high-five her niece.

  Nina reached to return it.

  Wendy gripped Nina’s arm. ‘What happened to your wrist?’

  Nina looked to Luke for guidance.

  ‘I’m getting to that.’ He wanted to get this over with.

  He described arriving at the airport, with Nina nowhere to be seen, how her abandoned suitcase had sparked a security alert.

  Wendy’s jaw fell.

  ‘When I landed from Heathrow, I got a text,’ Nina explained. ‘It said …’ She reached for her phone and started to search. ‘Yeah, here it is: “Sophie here (your dad’s friend), outside at pick-up zone B. Red VW Polo. Your dad in an accident. Critical. Come quick.”’

  Luke had no recollection of giving Nina’s number to Sophie. He had no reason to. But he’d often left his phone on the bedside locker. Sophie had ample opportunity to look at it any time he was in the shower.

  Nina looked at Wendy. ‘Well, as soon as I saw the message,’ she said, ‘I was like completely freaked out, as you can imagine. I tore to the exit. I forgot all about the suitcase. When I get to the pick-up zone, I see this red car there, waiting. It’s at the front of the queue. There’s this really serious-looking woman inside. She’s waving at me and she leans across to open the passenger door. She takes off before I’ve even shut it properly. By the way she’s driving, I’m guessing that things are really bad. She says she’s really sorry to meet me like this. She’s jabbering on saying something about the boathouse and an accident with the cruiser.’ Nina took a breath. ‘I’m even more freaked out wh
en we get back here. There’s no one around. Dad’s car is gone. Mum’s not here. There’s no sign of emergency services. Sophie tells me they had come by the water and to come down with her to the boathouse. I’m like really spooked, but I’m thinking Dad said really nice stuff about this woman and she seemed genuinely upset herself …’

  Nina shrugged and pulled a face.

  ‘Anyway, I follow her. But down in the boathouse there’s no one around. I knew then I’d made a mistake. That something was off. Then next thing I know, something hits me from behind, I buckle, Sophie is pushing me down the steps into the water, she’s clamping something on to my wrists, and next thing I’m locked to the handrail, up to my neck in water.’

  She stopped, suddenly breathless from an awareness of the danger she’d been in.

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ Wendy turned to Luke. ‘This really happened?’

  ‘Yes. This really happened.’ He checked Nina, reckoning she’d had enough for now. ‘That’s fine, Nina,’ he said. ‘I can take it from here. Unbeknown to me, Sophie was the girl’s mother.’

  ‘Sophie did all of this out of revenge?’ Wendy asked when Luke had finished the story. ‘This whole macabre ordeal was old testament eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth?’

  ‘Well, yes and no. I don’t really think Sophie wanted Nina to … to …’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t think she wanted to be responsible for that. The way she told it, it wasn’t down to her. Whatever would happen would be down to God. It was all in His hands.’

  ‘So the woman is some kind of Jesus freak?’

  ‘Not that either. I think it was more like her wanting me to endure all that she’d endured.’

  ‘OK.’ Wendy nodded. ‘I kind of get that twisted logic. But at the end of the day, what happened is a crime.’

  ‘I know. I get that too. Completely.’

  ‘And I’m guessing you can’t involve the police without incriminating yourself?’

  ‘There you have it.’ Luke nodded. ‘Should Sophie decide to involve the police, she would also end up incriminating herself.’

  ‘At the same time, the woman is too dangerous to be left out there unchallenged,’ said Wendy.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think she’s a danger any more.’ Luke flashed his sister a look. He didn’t want Nina feeling scared. ‘I don’t feel any particular need to see Sophie arrested. The woman has been through enough in life already. And like you say, if I did contact the police, it would mean me explaining everything about the hitand-run. To compound that, one I didn’t report. I believe I can offer more in the way of redemption as a doctor than I ever could serving some prison sentence.’

  Wendy looked unconvinced. ‘But with the right lawyer, and given that you were not the driver, isn’t it more likely that you’d be looking at a suspended sentence?’

  Luke didn’t want to take that chance. What if he had to go to prison? Nina would be alone. He shook his head. ‘It’s unlikely I’d still be able to practise. And even if I was, who would want to work with me? Anyway, it’s not just that. What’s the point in going to the police if Sophie no longer poses a threat?’

  ‘I don’t know how you can say that with such conviction.’ Wendy shook her head. ‘How do you know the woman is no harm?’

  ‘Because of this.’ He pulled an envelope from his pocket. He had read and re-read the handwritten letter inside. ‘I found it in the postbox.’

  Wendy took the envelope and withdrew the folded sheet of paper.

  ‘Will I read it out loud?’

  ‘If you like.’ Luke nodded. ‘Nina should hear it too.’

  Dear Luke,

  I hope this letter finds Nina well and recovering. I had hoped that God wouldn’t take her as He took my Maisie. In the end, things worked out for you, if not for me. I know how strange that sounds given what I have done. From the little I saw she seems a good person. Please explain to her everything that happened and why. Nina seems like a nice kid – hardly a kid really. She’s a young woman. Please explain that it was nothing personal on my part.

  As for you, I hated you blindly from the first moment I figured out who you were. But as we got to know one another, it got really hard. Especially as I always knew what I was going to do.

  In the first year after the accident, with the help of the grief support group I still attend, I managed to get out of bed each day. My husband Kevin didn’t. He couldn’t even bear to look at any photographs of her around the house. He always blamed himself for staying in to watch the football on the telly that night and not keeping an eye on Maisie as he normally did. He blamed himself. That turned to depression, then divorce, and he died by suicide a few years later.

  I always thought that you had been the one driving the car that killed Maisie. And I know now why you felt you couldn’t come forward. I’m writing to tell you that I understand. And although I’m not there yet, I hope that maybe someday I can forgive you. I want to do this as much for me as for you. Deep down I suspect you are a good person. That is not an easy thing for me to say.

  I must also sympathise with you on your wife. On her death firstly, but, if I’m being honest here – which I am – on having had to live with such a person for most of your adult life. God may not have taken Nina that night, but it seems God saw fit to call on Alison instead. Who knows what God has in store for her father, Cornelius Thompson?

  I am leaving Terence. I suspect this is beyond even his capacity for forgiveness. For me, it’s time for a new start. Just in case you’re in any doubt, you and Nina have nothing to fear from me. My aim was never to cause Nina harm. My aim was to make you feel the pain that I had felt.

  In the same way that I understand what you did, Luke, I hope that one day you’ll also understand my actions.

  Sophie

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Wendy, settling the letter back into its folds. ‘I’m not so sure I could rest easy knowing that she’s out there.’

  ‘It’s all going to be fine,’ Luke said firmly. ‘Wait and see.’ What else could he say? He could hardly say he too was gripped by a nagging unease. He’d looked back at the security footage from that night at the Glasshouse. Watching Sophie leave the house, watching her glide between her own car and Alison’s, before disappearing from view behind Alison’s car. What was she doing? It was impossible to tell from the grainy images. The light was poor and it was sheeting rain. He had his doubts. His own private doubts.

  ‘Yeah, you’re probably right, Luke. Everything will be fine.’ Wendy back-tracked, thankfully.

  ‘I think so too,’ Nina said. ‘What happened that night in the boathouse was the scariest thing that’s ever happened in my life. All I can think is that Sophie loved her daughter so much and was unbalanced by her death.’ She turned to Luke. ‘And I can understand why Dad did what he did. He did it for me. You’re a good man, Dad.’

  Luke looked at his daughter, awash with gratitude. What he didn’t share with his sister or his daughter was his sense of loss. How he missed what he thought he’d had with Sophie. Discovering what existed between them both was nothing but a grand deceit left him feeling sad and very foolish.

  Neither Luke, Wendy nor Nina ate more than a few mouthfuls of food, content just to sit at the table making small talk. Trying to feel normal. Wendy talked about Toni’s plans to extend the bar in Sydney. She suggested that Nina and Luke join them in Australia for Christmas later in the year. Though there were frequent lulls in conversation, none were filled with any mention of Alison or her passing.

  ‘Anyone fancy coming down to the basement?’ asked Luke as they cleared away the table.

  ‘You’ve still got that old ping-pong table?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Of course he has.’ Nina laughed. ‘Dad’s ridiculously competitive. He was in a total huff when I beat him before I went to Australia.’

  ‘Not true.’ With a half smile, Luke denied the charge.

  ‘Aw, Dad, you know it is.’

  Nina turned to Wendy. ‘When Dad’s buddies from the h
ospital come over, they have these tournaments and Dad always has to win.’

  ‘I don’t know what she’s talking about,’ said Luke with exaggerated innocence.

  Wendy grinned. ‘Tell me about it. He was exactly like that when we were kids. Do you remember, Luke, when we were in primary together – the three-legged races? How you always wanted us to win?’

  ‘I didn’t care about winning as long as we beat Teddy and Henry Sullivan.’

  ‘God,’ said Wendy, laughing. ‘I haven’t thought about them in years – what a pair of wankers they were.’

  Nina giggled.

  ‘Someone’s mobile’s ringing,’ shouted Wendy, as she loaded the dishwasher.

  ‘Mine, I think,’ said Luke.

  He went out to the coat stand. He pulled his ringing phone from the pocket of his coat.

  Roddy Gilligan.

  He’d had a belly-full of Gilligan at the funeral today. What did that weasel want now?

  ‘Roddy, hi,’ he answered.

  ‘Umm, I’m sorry to bother you like this,’ Roddy said. ‘But I’m afraid I’ve got some, umm, more bad news …’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m still at Crow Hall. It’s Cornelius. We were just shooting the breeze about the wind turbines and stuff … I was just trying to distract him really, that was all. Anyway, we’ve had to call an ambulance. I’m not sure, Luke, but it’s looking very much like the old boy’s had a stroke.’

  Myths and Truths

  Cornelius spent the first three days in the High Dependency Unit. The prognosis was poor. The stroke had been massive. But in true Thompson fashion, Cornelius clung on. He was transferred to the Stroke Rehabilitation Unit at St Matthew’s. His deficits were many. He had suffered a left hemisphere stroke. He had no power in his right arm, his speech was garbled and he was wheelchair-bound.