On his way back to the station, he mulled over their decision. But for some reason, he was not entirely satisfied. The Council’s decision might well protect its own members. But there were hundreds of unqualified therapists out there, practising all kinds of dubious therapies and they, if the killer was not too picky, would be equally at risk. He could only hope that his killer would have some respect for professional qualifications.
He reported the Council’s directive to his deputy but he too, though welcoming it, had similar doubts.
‘We must press on,’ he said. ‘This time the killer has slipped. He’s losing his touch, and he may well be frightened. And that’s how we’re going to catch him. By his fear.’
Wilkins saw no sense in such an argument. He regarded it simply as a token of encouragement. ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ he said.
Today is visiting day …
Today is visiting day and I’m dreading it. He will have received my letter. He will have considered it, or more than likely, he will have torn it up. I’m sorry I ever sent it. You see, despite my doubts, I always look forward to seeing Donald. I miss him. He was my best friend. I miss our evenings together, when we used to sit side by side on the sofa, watching television. We never talked much. That’s why he loved the box. You wouldn’t notice our silences. But I never minded them. There was always somebody else around to talk to. We were happy together and that’s all that mattered. Cosy. How many married couples could say that?
So, despite my fears, I was looking forward to seeing him. Mrs Cox too. I was sure she’d be on the ferry, despite her declaration that she would never visit her husband again. I was sorry for her. Had my husband murdered my mother, I would have washed my hands of him, but she probably thought the same of me, and wondered why I visited still. And, sure enough, she was in her usual compartment on the train and she was clearly as glad to see me as I her.
‘Here we go again,’ she said. It was her customary greeting, followed by the usual rider. ‘I don’t know why we keep on doing it.’
I let it lie. We were accidental friends, and such friends should waste no time in argument.
‘I’ve brought him a jigsaw,’ she said. ‘A rose garden. He’ll like that. It’ll give him something to do during our visit. Instead of staring at the ceiling.’
‘And what will you do?’ I asked.
‘I’ll watch him,’ she said.
‘You could do it together,’ I suggested.
‘He’d kill me if I touched it,’ she said.
And I believed her. His sentence to prison had certainly saved her life. ‘Do you write letters to your husband?’ I asked her. ‘Between visits?’
‘I write almost every day,’ she said.
I was surprised and slightly irritated by her submission. A daily letter was overdoing it a little. ‘Why so often?’ I asked.
‘It’s safer,’ she said. ‘I can say what I like and he can’t strike me through the post. I vent all my anger before each visit. Then I’m happy to sit back and look at him.’
It seemed to me then that her visits were punitive. Her letters were slaps in his face and she simply visited him to watch him squirm. Then I remembered my own letter, and again I was afraid.
Mrs Cox seemed to be in a very good mood, and from what she had told me I presumed that her current letters had not minced words. As we boarded the ferry, she made straight for the bar and ordered a double whisky. I stuck to orange juice. I had a feeling that by the end of the ferry crossing she would need my support. We settled ourselves by the window and watched Portsmouth recede. She was suddenly talkative. She’d taken herself to see a musical, and she outlined the plot for me, even contributing a couple of songs.
‘If I’m going to sing,’ she said, ‘I need to wet my whistle,’ and off she went to the bar again, returning with two glasses, each bearing a double whisky. I hoped that one of them was not for me. But I needn’t have worried. She set the two of them in front of her and once more started to sing. She refuelled herself from time to time, as her voice strayed off key, and her speech slurred. By the time we reached Fishbourne, she was legless. I helped her on to the bus. She was roaring with laughter, interrupted by attempted snatches of song. I rather hoped she might be sick, so that she could sober up a little before the visit. But she showed no signs of nausea. Indeed she became more and more merry as we neared the prison.
I dreaded our entrance. We reached the gates and she made no attempt to pull herself together. In any case, she was too far gone. And she knew it.
‘I’m drunk,’ she shouted. ‘And I bloody well don’t care.’
I steadied her into the visitors room where the axeman was waiting. He noted her merriment and in no way did it please him. How dare she be merry, he thought, while I’m stuck in here with no fun at all. He rose but made no move to help her to her seat, so that I had to hang on to her till the last moment. I moved the seat towards her and sat her down. Then I pushed the seat towards the table and let her get on with it. Whatever the ‘it’ was.
The other inmates and visitors were staring at her and she was going to give them a run for their money.
‘What the fuck are you all staring at?’ she shouted. ‘Let’s all have a sing-song. Cheer up this bloody place for a bit.’ Then she started on a carol as if it were Christmas. The others stared at her, marvelling or disgusted. Some of them actually joined in the singing. ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ they sang and even the warder who stood warily at the door could not help but mouth the words. And at the point when the snow lay round about, Mrs Cox shovelled it aside and threw up a glorious fountain of vomit. Its matter spread across the floor and the room was suddenly silent and ashamed. The warder crossed the floor to where Mrs Cox stood. Gently he took her by the arm.
‘Let’s go now, shall we?’ he said. ‘Let’s get some air.’ He led her outside, and shortly a cleaner appeared with bucket and mop; soon all disgusting traces of Mrs Cox’s statement had disappeared.
‘Poor woman,’ I said to Donald. And I did indeed pity her. Mrs Cox was a prim lady, middle class and respectable, her mouth a stranger to blasphemy. Her swear-laden discharge was a cry for help, and she had had to drink herself into a stupor in order to utter it. I wondered what state I would find her in when the visit was over.
The visitors room was unusually quiet. Mrs Cox’s outburst seemed to have stunned them all into silence. Remembering my letter, I was glad of it, and I hoped that Donald would make no mention of it at all. Then out of the silence, and as if it came from another place, I heard, ‘I got your letter. And your PS,’ he added. ‘It doesn’t matter why I did it,’ he said. ‘At least not to anybody else. It only matters to me. And that’s why I’m innocent.’
I didn’t know how to respond. But I knew I couldn’t let it lie.
‘Why doesn’t it matter to me?’ I asked. ‘I’m your wife. Surely I’m entitled to know.’ I felt the interference of that assertive ‘Verry’ and I knew that there would be a price to pay.
‘You are not entitled to know,’ he shouted.
It was the first time I could ever remember that Donald had raised his voice to me. A vein of rage throbbed in his forehead.
‘You are not entitled to know,’ he said again. ‘It was my crusade and you had no part in it.’
How often he had used that word during his trial. ‘My crusade’, or sometimes, he varied it with ‘my mission’. What it meant was nobody’s business but his own. It encapsulated the whole of the ‘why’, the ‘why’ of his total innocence. I had been given my answer, which was no answer at all, and I had to be satisfied.
‘I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ he said, and he squeezed my hand. ‘But I want you to understand, sweetheart. My crusade was sacred to me. Holy almost, and its cause can never be shared. Because of its cause, I am innocent. And I ask you to believe me.’
‘I do,’ I said helplessly, but I’d have been happpier if he’d given me just one simple reason to believe that he was not guilty. I had hoped t
o find it in the ‘why’, for that’s where it undoubtedly lay, but I was clearly not to be privy to it.
I felt he was anxious to change the subject, so I asked him about the mural.
‘I’ve started,’ he said eagerly. ‘At least, I’ve done a rough design on paper. The Governor has seen it and he’s given the go-ahead. Verry,’ he said, squeezing my hand once more, ‘I’m so happy.’
I wondered whether he had ever been so happy in the whole of his life and the thought caused me to ponder whether he needed me in his life any more. Whether he, like his two sons, had put the past behind him and found a different way, as they had done. And where did that leave me, with no role at all, except that of a sad observer waiting in the wings for a change that would never occur? And like Mrs Cox, I asked myself whether there was any point in visiting him at all. But without my visits, my life would have been stripped of its punctuation, and Mrs Cox’s likewise, and together we would travel the train, the ferry and the bus, if only for the sorry sake of grammar.
‘Tell me about the design,’ I said.
‘It’s dominated by the sea, of course. I think water will resonate for all of us here. We live on an island and the sea is our only escape. It is also our confinement. So we are obsessed with it.’
He smiled at me. ‘D’you understand?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I said. And I did. Every syllable of it. He was going to paint his childhood at the sea and it was only of secondary importance that it would be meaningful to others. It was his childhood, as it had been his mission, his crusade. He was a loner, my Donald. Through and through, and I wondered whether ever in his life he had shared himself with anybody. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him. In my bones, I felt it would be a clue to the ‘why’. But I’d learned my lesson and I held my tongue. But I did dare to ask whether there would be people in the mural.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But just vague figures. Just suggestions of faces. They won’t have any prominence.’
That made sense, I thought. For Donald, other people were mere gestures.
Then, as always, I was relieved when the bell rang the end of visiting time. I was uncertain of my place in the scheme of things. Of them all, Donald and my boys, I was the only one who had not found an alternative way. I was miserable, and the sight of Mrs Cox, hiding in the back of the bus, in no way cheered me. We were a wretched and silent pair all the way back to London. Occasionally she muttered ‘never again’ but it had become a mantra recited on all her return journeys.
‘See you next time,’ I said, as I left her at Waterloo. That was my mantra too.
I was glad that Donald seemed to have found some form of happiness. He’d been happy enough when we’d been together. But sometimes he’d get depressed and the mood would last for days. I tried to talk to him about it, to find out what was the matter. But he was silent. Angrily silent. So I didn’t ask any more.
Once there was a Christmas concert at the boys’ school. End of term thing. The boys were in the school choir. We both love carols, Donald and I, and we went to cheer the boys. There were going to be a number of turns. There was no programme, so the headmaster announced each performer. The concert started with a short nativity play by the juniors. Then a young boy, about twelve he was, played the piano. And he was really good. I often wonder what became of him. Then there were carols and Donald took hold of my arm, and I heard him singing along under his breath. He was happy then. Occasionally he would squeeze my hand and I would respond. I remember we were happy. Both of us. And at the same time.
But it was not to last. I shiver now when I think about it. After the carols, the headmaster announced the last item of the concert. He promised us a treat. The performer was the pride of the school. He had been awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. The board was deeply impressed with his prodigious talent.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Trevor Hope.’
And on came Trevor. He was a handsome lad. Smiling. Over-smiling, perhaps, to cover his nerves. He gripped his guitar under his arm. He made for the stool, centre stage, and rested the guitar on his lap. At last he seemed to relax. The smile faded, and as he dropped his fingers on to the strings, he closed his eyes and began. And it was then that Donald snatched his hand out of mine, and I felt him shiver beside me. He could have been moved by the boy’s playing, but Trevor had hardly started. I couldn’t understand it. I tried to take his hand, but he pulled it away. I stared at Trevor and tried to concentrate on the music. It was so beautiful that for a while I was lost in it as were the rest of the audience, who sat in awed silence. So when the slightest sound broke that silence, it was like thunder. And it came from beside me in the form of a sob. I dared to look at him and I saw tears rolling down his cheeks. He was racked with sorrow. I prayed that the recital would soon be over and that the applause would drown his weeping. And when it mercifully came, I was the first to put my hands together to cheer that young boy who seemed to have broken Donald’s heart. The applause lasted for some while, and I prayed that there would be no encore.
Trevor left the stage, and the headmaster once again took the platform. He thanked us all for coming, and reminded us of the collection that would go to the fund for Christmas gifts in the local children’s home. The audience began to leave. I took Donald’s arm. He was calm. He wiped his face and put on a brave smile. Instinctively I knew that I should never, but never, make any reference to his disturbance. And I never did. But I kept remembering it, and on my way back home from the prison that day it attained a dazzling clarity in my mind. And I wondered whether it was part of that elusive ‘why’ that I was seeking.
The Diary
Still Seven Down. Two to Go.
I’ve never read this diary. I’ve written it. That’s all. And when it is finished, when my crusade is done, I shall throw it in the fire. It is for no one’s reading. Not even my own. In truth, I am afraid of it. For there are times when the purpose of my mission and its compulsion, there are times when they blur and almost fade: the attic, the rope, the kicked-over stool, the shattered guitar, all those images of my crusade; sometimes I wonder whether I have dreamed them all. It is because of those moments of loss of faith that I am afraid to read this diary. I’ve only two more to go. Though I think of it as one. Because the ultimate call will not be random. It has been in my sights since the very beginning. I know its address. I know whom I shall see, I know exactly what I shall say. And all of it gloveless, for what happens after that won’t matter any more. I will have conquered and I will have found my peace.
But there’s the rub. And that’s why I delay. Why I postpone that final coup de grâce. It’s because I fear that the peace I have been seeking all these years will elude me, because its price has been so monumentally high. So I delay. I shall spend my time reinforcing those images of my cause. I shall dwell in that attic, glued like a limpet to its door and I shall view the hopeless overturned stool, the shattered guitar and the rope. And I shall shut my eyes on what the rope cradles. Thus I will nurture my purpose, invigorate my resolve, and all will be well. I shall cease to be a murderer.
But poor Mr Quick still bothers me. No amount of righteous motive can justify his careless dispatch. I say to myself it was human error, but the word ‘human’ sits uneasily in that context. It was a mindless and brutal murder. When this is all over, I shall seek out Mrs Quick and offer, for what they are worth, my profound apologies. For then I shall be at peace with myself. I shall have honoured that pledge, the pledge that I made to myself all those years ago, the pledge that I swore on that attic threshold.
It took me some years to start on my crusade. I was not lacking in resolve. Or even courage. My enemy was procrastination. My marriage to Emma was one cause of the delay. I simply didn’t trust her enough. She was a born questioner, and I could hide nothing from her. All I could give her was my silence, a silence filled with plans awaiting process. Then she left me and Verry happened. Verry, who found my silence normal and was not given b
y nature to questioning. And it was her total acceptance of everything I did and didn’t do, of everything I said and didn’t say, it was that acknowledgement that allowed me my first sortie. Thereafter, I seemed to be wholly licensed.
And as I plied my pledge, my boys were growing into men. Today is their graduation. They have both done well in their exams and they have gained places in a school for business studies. They want to go into banking. They are so alike, my boys, and so loving to me and Verry and to each other. We’re taking them out tonight to celebrate. They’ve chosen a French restaurant. They went on a school trip to Paris last year and they were deeply impressed by the food. We spoil them, Verry and I. And why not? There is nothing on earth that is a substitute for parental love. And nothing on earth that can better that love between siblings. And I ought to know.
As we sat around the table, joking and laughing, I wondered what they would think of their father’s crusade. One day, of course, they will learn about it and I pray that they will understand and forgive me. That they will know that their father is no murderer but one who loved, was loyal, and one intent on settling accounts.
We returned home late, too late to make arrangements for another sortie. But I was not tired. Verry and the boys went to bed but I stayed up, imaging, standing at that attic door, renewing my pledge.
STILL SEVEN DOWN. TWO TO GO.
Wilkins considered that …
Wilkins considered that the move from the Council of Psychotherapists had paid off. The shrink-killer was lying low. Or perhaps he had even done with his gruesome trade, having acknowledged defeat. He took comfort in the thought that at least there would be no more victims, even if the threat to their lives still remained at large. From time to time, he reviewed the threadbare accounts of the killer’s tally. Eight in all, but all his rereading revealed no clue. The French had unsurprisingly drawn a blank on Mademoiselle Lacroix, though they had put up a fine show. They had arrested and eventually freed seven suspects, despite having no evidence against any of them. They just wanted to be seen to be hot on the trail. But there are back-burners in Paris too, and that is where Mademoiselle Lacroix reposed, and would remain until Wilkins broke the barrier. For he was still convinced that the French murder was the work of the man he was seeking. But for now there was little he could do. He would have to wait until, and if, the killer struck again. Wilkins would be given another chance and though he prayed for it, he prayed equally for an end to the killings.
Nine Lives Page 15