Poor Billy. All he wanted was security, sureness. And he got it. He killed a nurse who had been assigned to take him for short trips around the hospital grounds. When he left the building and saw the wide expanse of blue, stretching from one horizon to the other, he began to scream. When she turned to comfort him he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her. It was all over very quickly. The court found him guilty while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Sentence was imprisonment at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Margaret had gone to visit him in the top-security wing of the hospital. He had looked perfectly happy as he spoke to her through the metal grille. Safe at last.
She put her hand in her pocket and put the crumpled handkerchief in front of her on the table. She ran her fingers over the embroidered capital letters. Mary had kept this handkerchief in her bag. My daddy’s pocket hankie, she had called it. Now it was defiled, desecrated. She stood up and went to the dresser. She picked up the box of matches. She took the handkerchief gingerly by one corner. She lit a match and held the flame to the yellowing cotton. She blew gently on it until the flame caught. Then she dropped it into the sink and stood and watched until nothing was left but a few charred fragments.
The day passed slowly. The usual people came and went. Nellie, muttering under her breath as she mopped and cleaned, and hung washing on the line. A couple of times she heard the doorbell ring. Neighbours enquiring. Get rid of them, she told Nellie. The hospice nurse appeared some time in the afternoon. By this time Margaret had moved out to the garden and was lying in a low chair. The nurse looked down at her and picked up the whiskey bottle, now nearly empty. ‘Is this such a good thing?’ she asked.
Margaret shrugged. ‘It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just necessary. For the time being.’
The nurse put on her dark glasses and picked up her bag. ‘I should tell you that your mother is going downhill rapidly. I don’t think she’s got much longer.’
‘Do you think she knows?’
‘Do you?’
It began to get cool around six in the evening. A breeze stirred the red fuchsia and the blossoms danced in step like an elegant corps de ballet. Margaret got up and went back into the house. She threw the empty bottle in the bin. I should be drunk, she thought. But there’s nothing predictable about the effect of alcohol. She made some tea and carried it into her mother’s room. Catherine stirred slightly as Margaret bent over her. ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘would you like something?’
But there was no response from the tiny figure curled into the pillows.
Margaret slept too. She sank quickly, shuddering as her consciousness released her. She dreamed. She had killed someone. She didn’t know who. But there was a severed head in a plastic bag. She had to get rid of it. A man came towards her. He held out his arms. She couldn’t let him see the head in the bag. She wanted him so much. She was aching for him. He held out his arms again. She wanted to run to him, and she wanted to run away from him, away to hide the plastic bag. But she couldn’t. Her legs were weak and soft, like melting ice cream. She looked down, and she could see her legs disappearing, dripping, running in tiny streams away from her body. Her legs wouldn’t move. And he was getting closer and closer, his smile wide, his arms open.
‘My legs, my legs, help me, help me.’ The scream cut into her dream. She raised herself slowly. Again the scream. She rushed from her bed, running down the stairs. The scream got louder and louder. Catherine was lying, half out of the bed, her head hanging down nearly on the floor. Her mouth was open. She was gasping for breath. ‘The pain,’ she sobbed. ‘In my chest. Crushing me. And my legs, I can’t feel my legs. And I’m so cold. Warm me, warm me, please, John? warm me.’ And she began to scream again, this time like a cornered rat, high-pitched, terrified. Margaret stood and looked at her. The tears began to stream down her face. ‘Mother, Mother. No, no. Please, no.’
28
‘Was that your father’s boat?’ McLoughlin asked. ‘In the Coal Harbour yard in Dun Laoghaire? The gaff rigged sloop, thirty foot or so, called Kitty Dhubh.’
‘How did you know?’ Margaret looked up at him.
‘I’m friends with a few of the blokes who work there. Boat fanciers like myself. They’d heard I was involved in this case. One of the older guys said he remembered you sailing with your father years ago.’
The huge white canvas sail, patched and mended, filling with wind as they rose and fell like a merry-go-round boat, racing through the harbour mouth. Her father at the tiller, his battered felt hat jammed on his head. The bowsprit rearing up above the waves, like the elegant horn of a unicorn.
‘Go on, Maggie, wave,’ he shouted, as they passed the end of the West Pier, and the fishermen standing on the granite wall raised their rods in salutation.
‘She’s an old beauty, isn’t she?’ McLoughlin said, sitting down on the wrought-iron bench in the garden.
‘A wreck. Falling to pieces.’
‘But a terrific pedigree they tell me.’
‘Take her, have her. I don’t want her.’
‘I couldn’t. She’s worth money.’
‘Suit yourself. If you want her take her away, otherwise she’ll be going on the scrap heap like a lot of other stuff in this house.’
They had come to see her, McLoughlin and Finney, to ask her about Jimmy Fitzsimons. Had she heard of him? Had Mary ever mentioned anyone of that name? Was there anything about him that seemed familiar?
She was in the garden by herself. She looked exhausted, her eyes sunk in deep hollows, her skin the grey of a mildewed leaf. She told them she had been up all night. It was her mother. She explained. A secondary tumour growing on her spine. Vertebral metastases, it was called. Compressing the spinal cord. Severe pain radiating down the nerves. A band of pain around the thorax. Pins and needles in the legs, coldness, leading to gradual paralysis of the lower body. Catherine had been rushed to St Luke’s for radiation therapy. They wouldn’t allow her home. It didn’t look good.
‘I really just came home to change my clothes. I’m going back into the hospital soon.’
McLoughlin made her coffee, grinding the beans, hunting through the cupboards for a jug for the milk. And he talked to her, told her about questioning Fitzsimons, that he had said he knew Mary, that they had spent from the Saturday night until the Wednesday morning together. That Mary had left. That he thought she was coming home.
‘And do you believe him?’
‘He seemed quite convincing.’
‘But you’re not going to leave it there, are you?’
‘No,’ Finney said. ‘We’re definitely not. Either way, so far he’s the last person who saw her alive.’
‘And why didn’t he come forward before now? If he was perfectly innocent.’
‘Said he was scared. That we’d assume that he killed her. The usual story.’
‘So,’ McLoughlin picked up the thread, ‘tomorrow we’re going back to his house, with a search warrant. And then we’ll take him in for formal questioning. What I wanted to know was if you have any photographs of Mary’s earrings and her ring, the ones that are missing. Also any pictures of her bag, or her clothes, anything that might identify them.’
Tension in her jaw, in her shoulders, in the way she abruptly left the room. The two men sat in silence in the sunny kitchen, drinking their coffee. They could hear her opening and shutting drawers, moving around from room to room upstairs.
‘Are you not going to say anything to her?’ Finney asked. ‘About the phone calls?’
McLoughlin shrugged. ‘Not today.’
‘Why not?’
‘Don’t you think she’s enough on her plate right now?’
‘But they’re evidence, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Evidence of what exactly? We don’t know who made them. We certainly don’t know that it was Fitzsimons. But if we need to, if we can’t crack him ourselves, then we can use the transcripts to frighten him.’
‘But she’s been involved with him, almost colluded with him.’
‘Has she? It doesn’t seem that way to me, Dave. And, if we’re talking about collusion, surely we’ve done a bit of it ourselves, haven’t we?’
Finney stood up. ‘I don’t understand you at all. There’s something weird going on in here.’ And he leaned over and rapped McLoughlin’s head with his knuckles.
McLoughlin poured himself another cup of coffee. He looked around the kitchen, the white-painted tongued-and-grooved walls and ceiling, the deep enamel sink, the old Aga set into the chimney breast. The black cat jumped up on his lap, staring at him, wide-eyed, kneading his trousers, purring.
He thought of the house they had left just over an hour ago. Two storeys with a slated mansard roof and dormer windows like a French country villa. Off Killiney Hill Road, a long gravel drive overgrown with rhododendrons, stone steps flanked by two carved lions and a massive front door with a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.
Mrs Fitzsimons wasn’t expecting them. She was a small thin woman, in her fifties. Her blonde hair was set stiffly, wig-like in its consistency. Her skinny fingers were covered with large rings. Green and red stones twinkled cheerfully among the diamonds. She showed them into a formal sitting room, with chintz-covered armchairs and a heavy mahogany sideboard glinting with Waterford crystal.
McLoughlin told her why they had questioned her son, that he was the last person who had seen Mary Mitchell alive. Finney told her what her son had said, that he and Mary both liked fucking. He used the word, with the emphasis that Jimmy had given it. She looked away, her pale eyes filling with tears.
‘Tell us about Jimmy,’ McLoughlin said. ‘What kind of a person is he?’
She bowed her shoulders, her hands fiddling with a balled-up tissue. ‘Difficult,’ she replied, ‘always in trouble. He was expelled from school. I couldn’t understand it. He was clever. Photographic memory, but always getting into fights with the other boys.’
‘But he seems to be doing fine now, with this chauffeuring business?’
‘That was my husband. He bought Jimmy the car, got him into the agency.’
‘I see.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘Lovely house,’ McLoughlin said. ‘Have you lived here for long?’
‘Seven or eight years, I suppose.’
‘Very nice area, Killiney. You’re not from here originally?’
She shook her head, her fingers pleating the protective covers on the arms of her chair.
‘You said that your husband set Jimmy up in business.’
‘That’s right. He’s always been very good to him.’
‘But you didn’t refer to him as Jimmy’s father.’
She stared at the swirls of colour on the carpet. She supposed, she said, that she should tell them. Jimmy was actually her eldest daughter’s child. She had had him when she was fourteen. They were living in England at the time. Manchester.
‘And you decided that you would bring him up as your own?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And Jimmy’s father? Did you know who he was?’
She looked up. Her gaze moved around the room, lighting for comfort on the crystal, the row of Belleek ornaments on the marble mantelpiece, the ornate brass chandelier that hung from the ceiling rose. ‘I never asked,’ she said.
‘And does Jimmy know this?’ Finney leaned forward.
‘I never told him.’
A girl was leaning against their car when they left. She was fat and fair, her hair tied up in bunches behind her ears.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded.
‘We’re friends of Jimmy’s,’ McLoughlin replied, opening the door.
‘Jimmy, Jimmy,’ she began to shout, jumping up and down. ‘Jimmy showed me this. Look.’ And she began to sing the words and mime the actions, one hand held up, the other bent around her back. ‘Listen to me. I can sing.’
‘I’m a little pee-tot.
Short and stout.
Here’s my hangle and here’s my snout.’
He watched her in the rear-view mirror as they drove away, marching up and down, still shrieking the words out loud.
His father had always said, Be prepared. When you go into an interrogation, know as much as you can, not just about the facts of the case, but about the person. Know their family, their friends, their life. Everything. He had been good at interrogations, Pat McLoughlin, so they all said. Some said he was the best. He never used force, even in the days when you could get away with it. He would sit in the room, and wait. For as long as it took. He would chat. Talk about the weather, the horses, the dogs. Wait for the right moment, when he could start pushing the buttons. Wait until the desire to tell became overwhelming.
Margaret came back into the kitchen. She handed him a couple of photographs, damp patches on their shiny surface from her fingers. They were head shots of Mary, and one of her standing with her bag slung over her shoulder.
‘Not much good, I’d say. But you might as well take them.’
‘None of the ring, no?’
She shook her head and looked at her watch, frowning. ‘I’ve told you already. They’re all I have. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go back to the hospital.’
‘You know,’ he said, ‘this Fitzsimons guy. Funny family background. Seems he’s really his elder sister’s kid. But his grandparents brought him up thinking that he was theirs.’
‘So? It makes a difference?’
He shrugged. He noticed she had changed her dress. She was wearing a long white shift. Pleated cotton, with bright red and yellow flowers embroidered around the scooped neck.
‘That’s pretty,’ he said.
She didn’t respond.
‘Look, if you need anything, need any help at all, you have my number.’
She nodded. He wanted to put his arms around her, pull her small, thin body up against his bulk, kiss her neck, nibble the soft skin that pulled away from her throat.
He thought of her again that night as he sat at home on his own. The television was on in the corner with the sound turned down. It was the annual Rose of Tralee festival from Kerry. Derek Davis was standing on stage, holding a pair of high-heeled shoes while a pretty girl, her taffeta skirts hitched up, danced a jig. McLoughlin picked up the remote control and turned up the volume. A burst of applause filled the room.
‘Isn’t she lovely? Kathleen O’Boyle from Chicago, ladies and gentlemen, and I bet Cindy and Thomas, her parents, are so proud of her.’ The camera had found them. Her father and mother were sitting close together, holding hands. Their faces were filled with love and pride. The camera zoomed into their faces, then cut back to a close-up of the girl. She was the image of her father. The same strong chin and big white American teeth. The picture changed again. Back to the mother. She was crying, the tears running unashamedly down her face. Beside her the girl’s father held out a handkerchief, then tenderly and without embarrassment, dabbed at her eyes, holding her face gently by the chin. McLoughlin poured himself another glass of wine. And as he watched, he, too, began to cry. For Margaret, for Mary, for himself.
29
It was all there in the Criminal Justice Act of 1984. Section 4, page 11, Detention of Arrested Persons in Garda Síochána Custody in Certain Circumstances.
Subsection
(3)
(a)
The period for which a person so arrested may be detained shall, subject to the provisions of this section, not exceed six hours from the time of his arrest.
[And]
(b)
An officer of the Garda Síochána not below the rank of superintendent may direct that a person detained pursuant to subsection (2) be detained for a further period not exceeding six hours if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such further detention is necessary for the proper investigation of the offence.
And the Statutory Instrument, S.I. No 119 of 1987, Criminal Justice Act, 1984 (Treatment of Persons in Custody in Garda Síochána Stations) Regulations, 1987 spelt it out
even further. Who could do what to whom, how and why. No more picking your suspect up late on Friday evening and holding him over the weekend to make him sweat. No more beatings, unexplained injuries, undocumented visits by the doctor. None of that was allowed any longer. Everything had to be noted, timed, recorded. Charges had to be explained in clear language, rights spelt out.
McLoughlin watched them bring Jimmy Fitzsimons in. It was eleven-fifty in the morning. Wednesday, 30 August. An ordinary working day. The main street jammed with cars, the footpaths crammed with shoppers. The weather still fantastic. A bit of fog earlier on, but now it was hot and sunny.
Dave Finney and Bertie Lynch had been on Fitzsimons’ doorstep at seven forty-five a.m. with a search warrant, and a technical team waiting to go in. They had searched the little mews house thoroughly, collecting hairs, fibres, prints, all the routine stuff. No sign of the girl’s jewellery, clothes or bag. Then, when they were satisfied they had everything, Finney had arrested and cautioned him. The time had been noted. Eleven-oh-seven precisely.
McLoughlin walked slowly downstairs into the public area. He watched Fitzsimons as he was led in, handcuffed, through the swing doors. He looked calm, relatively untroubled. That wouldn’t last. McLoughlin stood back in the shadow of a doorway where he couldn’t be seen. He had noticed yesterday, when they had called to question him, what the Adamson woman had meant by his beauty. He was extraordinary to look at. Pale yellow hair. Light blue eyes, with long lashes. Smooth creamy skin. And a slim, muscular body, small waist, neat hips, long legs and a natural grace. He reminded McLoughlin of a ballet dancer or a bullfighter. Someone who can express themselves through their gestures, the flick of their wrist, or the turn of their foot.
He stepped out into the hall and followed the small group into the sergeant’s office. Sal Daly, the member in charge, was giving Fitzsimons a copy of form C.72 to read. He could hear him now, going down through the list, checking off its contents. Reason for arrest, notification to other persons, legal advice, visits, telephone calls etc. Searches, fingerprints, palm-prints, photographs and tests, meals. He went back over the most important points. Asked him again if he wanted a solicitor, did he want them to inform his parents of his whereabouts? He was surprised when Fitzsimons shook his head. Sal asked him again. He heard him.
Mary, Mary Page 17