A Time To Every Purpose

by Ian Andrew

  It helped to put the name into context but Heinrich was getting confused. “Start at the beginning Mary, please?” he spoke as if to a child.

  She straightened a little in her chair, “Thomas Dunhill came into Harrow on Sunday. He was still alive when I got to him.” Mary looked across the table but her focus was far away. Her eyes began to harden as she recalled the moment that had changed her life.

  “Go on,” he prompted.

  “He forgave me.”

  Heinrich was quite shocked to see tears welling in her eyes.

  She continued, “He looked at me and told me he forgave me. He was so calm and I was killing him and he just…” Her voice caught and tears tumbled down her cheeks and fell onto the steel desk.

  “He forgave you as you shot him?” Heinrich felt a surge of empathy and deep respect for this man who had been a true Turner right to the last.

  Mary was nodding as she continued through small sobs, “He said he loved me and he forgave me and I twisted my boot into him and then I shot him. Like so many others. But not like any other.” She stopped. The quiet lasted almost a minute. Heinrich waited for her.

  “He said he loved me but with a specific phrase.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  “He said he loved me and he said that God loved me. He said he loved me like my sister used to.”

  “He knew your sister?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure. He said the same thing she used to say to me. I don’t know if he knew her but he might have.”

  “You still shot him.”

  “It’s my job.” She spoke with no cynicism or sarcasm to her voice. She merely stated it like the fact it was.

  “So how does this link to Uwe Joyce?”

  She ignored his question. “Do you know about God?” she asked him and reached up with her cuffed hands and wiped the tears from her face.

  Heinrich stared back at her slightly wary of where this was going to lead. Before he got a chance to respond she continued.

  “I’ve killed many people Herr Steinmann and no one ever forgave me before. He said he loved me and he meant it. The last person who ever said that to me was my sister.” She paused and then repeated herself, “I think he might have known my sister.” Heinrich watched as her eyes lost focus again and she seemed to be lost in a world of memories. Silent tears welled up again. He waited.

  “He said I was an instrument of God. But I don’t think he meant his God.” She smirked as she said it and looked back at Heinrich.

  “How many Gods are there Mary?”

  “Just the one. I think there’s one, but I think he might be different from how Thomas saw him.”

  “Do you spend a lot of time thinking about God?”

  “No.” She laughed the answer. Heinrich was a little surprised at her ability to laugh with tears still running down her cheeks.

  “So what is your version of God like then Mary?”

  “Older.” Her answer was cold, stark and said with a cruel edge. “He’s much older and vengeful to a point that makes us look like amateurs.”

  “How do you know about this God?” he asked.

  “You just need to consider the facts. Thomas said his God loved me. But if he loved me and he loved Thomas, why did he let me kill him? I’ve thought a lot about that since it happened. Thomas and his God. The God that told Thomas to love me. Told him, made him love me as I shot him. I’d not heard anyone mention God for a long time.” She stopped and once more was lost in her memories.

  Heinrich needed to get her to talk about Uwe Joyce’s murder but he was intrigued as to where this questioning was going. He decided to let it flow.

  “When did you last hear about God?”

  “We had a teacher, back in primary school. She spoke about Jesus. Said he was weak and he had made God weak. She said that before him God had been all-powerful but Jesus was weak. I wondered what the world would be like if the weak were strong. I always wondered that as a little girl. One day I found out the answer.” Mary looked down at her lap. She seemed to shrink a little and Heinrich tried to think of what he could say to entice the next piece of the puzzle out of her. As he was pondering his next question she continued.

  “I was weak once and then I became strong. I became so strong that I killed him.” Her voice began to harden and as she looked up from her lap he could see her eyes had narrowed. She looked and sounded fierce. “That bastard of a man. Don’t you dare let them say he was a good person. He was a fucking sadist.” She had real anger and rage in her voice. “The weak are worth fuck all. When I became strong I killed my father.” She stopped abruptly. Heinrich waited until her face had relaxed a little.

  “Can you tell me why Mary?” Heinrich knew what her file said about the incident. Her father was accused of paedophilia and the assumption was he had abused her but, that had never been proven or pursued. The official line was she shot him as he had tried to attack her. He wondered if he could get her to talk about it. He didn’t need to wonder. She started speaking again.

  “It’s not what you said earlier. He didn’t know anything about me. I wasn’t even with Uwe when my father came to Harrow. In fact it was the opposite. It was because of my father I met Uwe. Don’t you dare let them say it was for any other reason. I killed my father because he deserved to die. He knew nothing about me and he wouldn’t have said anything to anyone in authority. Don’t let them make out he was anything but an animal.” Her voice was raised again and her wrists were straining against the cuffs.

  “Okay Mary, okay. I’ll do my best but you’ll need to tell me the real reason you killed him and Uwe Joyce.” He looked at her and watched once more as she reclaimed her emotions. Again she looked directly at him and held his gaze.

  “My father raped me. He raped my sisters and he raped me. Each one of us in our time. He raped me over and over for a long time when I was a little girl. I was small and I was weak and no one stopped him. When I became strong enough to deal with the realities of my life, I killed him. That’s why I think the weak deserve to be strong. It gives you power. It makes you free. Thomas should have been strong. Instead he loved me and I shot him. Over and over.” She looked almost wistful as she finished, “I shot him like I shot my father. That can’t be right.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked back down at her lap.

  “Mary. Why did you shoot Uwe Joyce?”

  “Because he was being disrespectful to Kasey. She was nice to me and loved me.”

  “Your sister, Kasey?”

  “No, not Kasey. Thomas. He was saying mean things about Thomas. But Thomas knew Kasey, didn’t he?” She half tilted her head and was genuinely asking Heinrich like he would know the answer.

  Heinrich was suddenly aware that whatever Thomas Dunhill had said to Mary had pushed her over an edge that she had probably been teetering on for most of her life. On one level she was cold, calculating, ruthless. On another she was rationale, reasoning and reasonable. But now she was mixing up memories of her sister and this Thomas Dunhill. The last two people, possibly the only two people, who had ever said they loved her. He repeated his question, “Mary. Why did you shoot Uwe Joyce?”

  She sighed. “He deserved it. It was just that simple. He deserved it. He was being a prick and I decided that I had had enough of people saying bad things about others. He was bitching about Thomas and that annoyed me. I had grown quite fond of Thomas by then.”

  “Fond of him?” Heinrich didn’t mean the question to sound so incredulous but he couldn’t help it.

  “Yes. I know I’d killed him but I’d thought about him during the evening. I felt sorry for him. I was sorry I had shot him and I wanted to make it up to him,” she said, like it was the most natural circumstance imaginable. “Anyway, you asked why I shot Uwe. Well, Uwe said that the old God used to strike people down when he was angry. He said it just like my teacher used to say it. Thomas told me that I had God inside me too but I didn’t want his weak pacifist God inside me. I wanted the Old God. I wanted t
hat angry vengeful God to be inside me. I was angry, so I just did it. Uwe said God should get angry again and settle scores with people. So I did.”

  The room remained quiet as Heinrich processed the information. He knew she was tired and he knew she was stressed but, he also knew it was so much more. Although it would take proper assessment to be sure, he reckoned Mary Reid was suffering from post traumatic shock built up over decades of abuse from not only her father but from conducting the duties of a camp overseer. As if to acknowledge his thoughts, she looked back up at him and smiled a most beautiful smile.

  “Life would be different if you could pick which God to follow. Don’t you think?”

  Something deep in Heinrich’s psyche flagged what she had just said but he had to ignore it for the present. What he needed to do now was wrap this up by asking her the question they needed answering for the official record.

  “Mary, are you saying God made you do this?”

  “No, of course not. I did it.” She answered plainly, “Uwe annoyed me, insulted Thomas and said that the Turner’s God should get angry. But we all know he can’t. So I did it for him.” She looked directly at Heinrich before continuing, “The recce team just got in my way. Harold and Fredrick were lucky. Had it not been for Thomas you’d be counting more corpses.” Her voice was rational and completely at ease.

  “Mary, is it your statement that you’d been sleeping with Minister Uwe Joyce for five years and then you shot him because he insulted a Turner prisoner whom you had dispatched earlier in the evening?”

  “Yes. It’s a real shame you caught me too. I had plans to start reaping some real vengeance.”

  “Like what?”

  “There’s an official visit to London in a few weeks. We received a formal notice of it. The Führer is coming to see us at Harrow. I did wonder if I could get close enough to look him in the eyes when I shot him.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly it took him a second to properly register her words. Heinrich couldn’t believe he had heard her correctly.

  “Pardon Mary?”

  When she repeated herself precisely he decided it was time to have a break. “Would you like a tea or coffee Mary?”

  “Tea, white, one sugar.”

  She gave her tea order in the same tone and manner that she had admitted to planning the assassination of the Führer.

  “She’s nuts.” Pascal Debouchy was watching her on the monitors.

  “Completely,” agreed Dietmar, “This isn’t a Turner conspiracy and God didn’t make her do it. She’s been abused since childhood and just snapped.”

  Peter Vogel made the arrangements for her to be transferred to a cell until Berlin decided their orders.

  Chapter 32

  Heinrich sat in one of the concrete chairs around the side of the administration building and waited patiently. At five minutes after midday Leigh walked around the corner and stopped mid-stride when she saw him. He smiled at her and stood up.

  “Hello, told you I’d be back.”

  She walked directly up and hugged him. Heinrich was genuinely surprised and it took him a moment to raise his arms and hug her back. He held her tightly and felt her body against his. She tucked her head into his neck and sighed loudly.

  “Leigh, it’s okay, I told you I’d be okay. Are you?”

  He felt her head nodding against him as she continued to hold him closely. Heinrich was conscious of the feelings she was stirring in him and he bent and kissed her lightly on the head. Eventually she released the pressure of her arms.

  “When did you get back?” she asked.

  “A while ago but we had to go straight in with her. I couldn’t get away any earlier. I take it you got the message that I passed through to Konrad?”

  “Yes,” she looked up into his eyes and held his gaze, “Thank you, I assume that was your way of letting me know you were safe?”

  “Well I could hardly call you, now could I? People would talk,” he said and winked at her. She gave him a mischievous smile that caused his heart to skip.

  “So did she come quietly?”

  “Sort of. It was all a bit of a non-event really. I think the fatigue made her guard drop. But, we wouldn’t have been close to her if it hadn’t been for the time Projection.”

  “You must be shattered, when did you last sleep?”

  “I caught some on the helicopter on the way back, but I’m okay.”

  “What’s going to happen with her?”

  “If I handle it properly with Berlin I think she’ll just be quietly dealt with here.”

  Leigh was quiet for a moment. Finally she said, “You know, all these years and I’ve never been able to share my thoughts. Every time something dreadful occurs and every time my work or work I’ve been involved with is involved... It rips another part of me into shreds.”

  “I know. She’s done terrible things but we should be reaching out to help her. To turn the other way. Yet we still serve and we still do their bidding and the best we can hope for is a swift death for her. And pray for God to have mercy on her soul.”

  “And on ours Heinrich. And on ours.”

  He nodded, “And on ours.”

  Leigh watched him and saw a real sadness in his eyes. She needed to try to find something positive out of the whole episode. “But at least no show trial and the attending circus?”

  “No.” Heinrich shook his head, “She’s wounded and destroyed from the inside out. She really is a victim in this.”

  Despite her earlier sentiment Leigh bristled at the use of the word victim. “I agree we should show compassion but how much of a victim is she when compared to the bodies she left littered around. She killed that man in cold blood just after she had slept with him. How much of a victim was he?”

  “I know,” he hesitated and realised that watching the Projection had impacted on Leigh and probably the rest of the science team. It may well have been the first time any of them had been exposed to anything like that level of aggression. Even though the Reich was brutal, it managed to keep its violence hidden away. “There’s just,” he paused again and wondered how much he should tell her. As if reading his mood Leigh put her hand on his arm.

  “It’s okay, you don’t need to tell me or justify your thoughts. If you think she’s a victim, I believe you.”

  “It’s not just that. She also said some strange things about God.”

  Leigh unconsciously took out a cigarette and then thought better of it. As she went to put it back in the packet he spoke up, “Go ahead, I don’t mind.”

  She hesitantly looked at him and when he nodded she decided to take him at his word. As she exhaled the smoke she asked him, “What did she say about God?”

  As Heinrich told her about the strong God and the love that had finally pushed Mary over the edge, he noticed Leigh’s brow furrow and her eyes drift.

  “Leigh, what is it?”

  “I’m not sure, just something. You know when you get an idea but it’s not fully formed, like a flash of something? Then nothing. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Like an itch at the back of your mind and only thinking can scratch it?” he said.

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”

  “I know, I got the same feeling when she said it to me. I need to go back and talk to her more but I need to get Pascal and Dietmar away from there. I want to talk to her about God without anyone else listening.”

  “That’s easy. They were briefed on the project by Berlin, so it was obvious they had the same expectations you had. Even I could see their disappointment when we ran the real Projections. Send them down to me and I’ll give them the full tour. It’ll take most of the afternoon if I spin it out.” She smirked as she thought of taking a few hours to explain and thoroughly confuse another two non-scientific minds.

  “Oh you’re good, aren’t you?” Heinrich teased her.

  “Yes I am, but it comes at a price.”

  “Name it.”

  “Dinner?”

&nb
sp; “I’d love to. I’ll pick you up at eight tonight?”

  “No not tonight Heinrich, you’ll be exhausted. Tomorrow? Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Leigh stubbed her cigarette out and they both walked back to the front of the building. She started to ascend the entrance steps whilst Heinrich made his way back to the holding facility on the far side of the compound. A few steps away he turned his head and caught her doing the same thing. They looked at each other, then smiled and continued on their ways.

  Chapter 33

  “Mary?” Heinrich spoke softly to the woman as she slept on the suspended cot bed attached to the wall of the cell. She woke instantly and looked at him but did not move to get up.

  “Herr Steinmann, more questions? Or are you here to take a little rest and relaxation?” Mary Reid knew how to use her voice and her body to control most situations. She arched her back on the cot and looked straight at him. She was like a sensual cat playing with its prey. He saw her mouth begin to form a smile. He could see the slightly parted lips yet her eyes remained opaque and void of humour.

  “No Mary, just questions,” he said as he sat down in the small chair bolted to the floor.

  Unfazed, she remained lying on the cot, watching him. “Are you sure? It would seem the light on the CCTV camera up there has stopped blinking. Are you sure you don’t want a little privacy with me?”

  “I want privacy, but just to talk.”

  “Oh now I’m intrigued.” She swung her legs over the side of the cot and sat up, stretching and yawning. “Go on then, what do you want to talk about that needs all the in-cell monitoring turned off?”

  “I want to talk about God.”

  “Are you feeling holy?”

  “No, I just want to know why you think he wanted you to get angry. I thought God was loving and caring and taught all his believers to turn the other cheek?”

  “No Herr Steinmann, he didn’t. He used to get angry all the time. People used to kill in his name,” she said it as a fact. Heinrich studied her face for any sign of emotion or confusion but she was speaking what she believed to be the truth.