by Adam Cloake
“Are you serious?” he asked sharply, separating his hands. He was immediately aware of the sting under his fingernails, and of how he had been digging them under each other. He was sure he did this more often than he imagined. “I’m on a first date,” he said. “Of course I’m showing some nervous habits. That’s only natural.”
The waiter came to remove their plates. Looking from one to the other, he asked “Is everything all right?”
Sean felt embarrassment grip him. What did the waiter mean? Had Sean raised his voice? Had his anger been heard by others in the room? Because his seat was not as dark as Miranda’s, he suspected that the blush on his face was visible to all.
“Relax, Sean!” Miranda said, smiling. “He’s just wondering if we want to order anything else.” She smiled at the waiter. “Could we have two banoffees, please?”
She had done it again! This time, she had ordered for him the very dessert that he usually chose. She added, “Oh, I’m sorry, Sean. Perhaps you wanted something else.”
“You know that’s what I wanted,” he said, through tight lips. He looked at the waiter, who couldn’t conceal a glimmer of amusement. Sean had spoken briefly to him many times before. He knew all the waiters here, but only in the most cursory way. Now he wondered if he would have to find a new favourite restaurant.
When the waiter was gone, Miranda continued. “I’m trying to imagine you as a child, Sean. And as a young man. You told me in one of your messages that you used to read a lot of detective fiction, but not as much anymore. You probably have one of those books in your coat pocket right now, but you never seem to have the time to read it. What is it? A Dashiell Hammett? A James M. Cain?”
This time, he decided to just shrug. Perhaps he would have his dessert at a different table, and on his own.
She continued, “Did you develop a fantasy world around those detective stories, Sean? Was that why you chose the job you do – the allure of spending so much time with police and prisoners, with cops and killers? You get to meet bad guys, and you try turning them into good guys? But I can tell that, recently, you’ve been going through a dark patch. You’ve been feeling the need to speak very frankly to someone, Sean, and maybe that someone is me.”
He looked again at his fingers. Unconsciously, they had found their way back together again. The exposed quicks were sore from the amount of pressure he had been putting on them. He wanted to argue with Miranda, but he was intelligent enough to know that denial of a character trait is often an admission that the trait exists. Besides, he didn’t need that piece of wisdom to know the uncomfortable truth. She was right!
Finally, in a quiet tone, he asked, “So tell me, Miranda, why are you and I really on this date tonight?”
She leaned forward, her palms on the table, her fingers splayed. Sean glanced down at the gold, the silver, the tiny green eyes of the dragon. Then, in her most forthright tone of the evening, she said, “I’m here for two reasons, Sean. The first one is perfectly normal. I wanted to go on a real date. Simple as that! It’s been a while since my last one.” She pushed her palms along the tablecloth towards him, but stopped short of touching him. “I know how to read people, Sean. You’ve already spotted that, I’m sure. And I can see in you what I need to see. You’re a kind, sensitive man. That was clear from the start. Perhaps, deep down, you really are the hero you’ve always wanted to be.”
Kind.
Sensitive.
Hero.
He tried to shape these three words into a person, the person she said he might be. The result was a man who seemed familiar, but whose flaws – reticence, remoteness, disillusionment – saddened him.
She continued, “Perhaps I’m as lonely and uncertain as you are. So, despite your anxieties about the evening so far, Sean, let me assure you that I’m as intrigued by you as you are by me.”
She took another mouthful of wine – this time, a long one.
There had been no irony in her voice. She appeared to really mean what she said. She was offering to create from him the man she had just described, and to push some of his doubt away from him. Plus, she seemed to feel that he had something to offer her in return.
He asked, “You said there were two reasons. What’s the other one?”
Miranda put down her glass and looked straight at him.
“The other one,” she said, “is Derek Hill.”
He told her everything. Despite knowing it was strictly against the rules of his profession, he unburdened himself of all his feelings about Hill, and about his dread over the man’s imminent release. The story had been like iron filings clogging up his machinery, and she was a magnet, clearing the system.
They ignored their oncoming desserts, offering them instead to the waiter. Sean wanted to quickly pay the bill and leave, before he could begin his story. The thought of telling it while surrounded so closely by other people made him break out in another sweat, this one even colder than the one on the train.
They stepped out into the night.
Sean tried to ignore the bitter autumn wind stinging them from the Irish Sea, although it hardly seemed to affect Miranda at all. To his surprise, she reached into her bag, revealing that she had brought with her another bottle of the same Burgundy, as well as a pair of crystal wine glasses in bubble wrap. Despite being impressed by this, Sean had to admit that his hands were much too cold to hold the glass. She suggested instead that they drink from the bottle. He was initially resistant to this strange idea. He hadn’t consumed alcohol in this way since his first year at college. Nevertheless, despite his initial self-consciousness, he agreed to partake discreetly as they walked along the East Pier.
With a heavy sigh, as if the tale had been squeezing the healthy air from his lungs for too long, Sean began to speak.
* * *
Derek Hill had been convicted three years earlier of the attempted rape of Grace Lynne, a young nurse. The incident had occurred in Tibradden Woods, at the foot of the Dublin Mountains. On a dusky evening, shortly before nightfall, Hill had stood in the middle of a remote country road, about two miles south of the Woods. No-one knows how long he had been standing there, waiting. It may have been many hours.
Assuming he was in some sort of trouble, Grace had stopped her car and rolled down the driver’s window. While speaking to her, he suddenly drew back his arm and punched her on the side of her face. Stunned, and in agony, Grace had then been easy to subdue. Hill gagged her, and tied her up in the back seat of her own car, hidden under a blanket he had brought with him in a shoulder bag.
He drove to the edge of the Woods. He parked, and got Grace out of the car. Then he led her up the short ridge, and into the trees, her hands still tied behind her back.
“That can’t have been easy,” Miranda said. “The ground there is so uneven. It’s really hard to walk on.”
Sean was initially surprised by the suggestion in this that she had already been there herself. He chose, however, to brush this aside for now. “Yes. And it was already after dark by this time.” he added.
Once deep in the Woods, Hill forced Grace down to the ground. As she lay on her back, a fallen tree branch digging into her shoulders, he whispered to her, “You’re pretty. Here’s something to make you even prettier.”
With that, he drew a red silk scarf from a pocket of his shoulder bag. He tied the silk around her throat, gently at first. He then jerked it tight, the fabric biting into Grace’s young skin. “I hope you don’t mind, but we’ll be needing this later, before we finish.” Grace said later that his voice was low – a terrifying, seductive hiss.
The scarf was not yet tight enough to strangle her, but her air was significantly cut off. She began to feel the early onset of the darkness that she knew lay ahead of her.
He was sitting on her stomach, and Grace said later that he emitted a series of long, satisfied gasps as he stared down at her. Her arms were twisted under her, but she continued to struggle with the rope around her wrists. Her gagged mouth was drying u
p, as was her constricted throat. Even if he had removed the rag, she knew she would have been unable to scream. Besides, in such a remote location, her screams would have dissolved into the air.
Grace was saved from death by a combination of luck and her own ingenuity.
She had been continually struggling with the rope on her wrists and, eventually, she could feel the knot becoming loose.
Hill slowly, with deliberation, undid some of the buttons on her blouse.
He then pulled the gag out of her mouth.
Leaning his face down close to hers, he continued to moan softly. He seemed to be smelling her breath, as if this was part of his ritual.
But, as he stroked her face, he was suddenly distracted by a sound from the edge of the Woods.
“Grace said later that she thought she heard voices whispering not far away.” Sean continued. “She believes that Hill must have heard them too.” However, it was highly unlikely that anybody was in the area that night, and nobody ever came forward. The authorities believed that they had both heard some sound made by the wind, or by a bird. In any case, it was a highly fortuitous moment for Grace.
As Hill sat frozen – with all his attention now focussed on that point in the distance – his right hand continued to hover near Grace’s mouth. In an instant, she took the only chance she had. She clamped her teeth around his thumb, and bit down hard – savagely hard. A later medical examination would conclude that, such was the ferocity of the bite, she had pushed her own teeth a few millimetres back into her gums.
Hill screamed out in shock and agony. With his free left hand, he swiped at her. Because he was using his weaker arm, the blows had only a minimal effect. In that instant, Grace felt her wrists suddenly become free. Still holding his thumb in her teeth, she pulled one of her hands from beneath her. Despite the pain and stiffness in her shoulders, she reached out and grabbed a branch which lay on the ground nearby. It was thick, about 18 inches long. She released Hill’s thumb from her mouth. At the same time, she mustered the strength to swing the branch. It connected squarely with Hill’s ear, splitting the skin of its helix. He turned his face away, so her next two blows landed on the crown of his head. Grace now had enough time to twist herself from under him, and struggle into a standing position. Still kneeling on the ground, Hill tried to grab her, but she hit him again, this time on the side of his forehead. By now, he was quite disoriented, as blood gushed down his cheek.
“She certainly has courage. There’s no question about that.” Miranda said. Sean agreed. They were now hallway along the pier. The wind from the water was rising, so they turned around, and began walking back towards the harbour. By now – perhaps thanks to the cold – Miranda’s arm was linked in his.
“What Grace said next was truly horrific.” Sean continued. “As she ran away, she almost fell into a shallow hole which had been hidden beneath some broken branches. The hole was about five feet in length. When the Guards examined it later, they reckoned that Hill had already dug a grave for her, possibly the night before.”
Miranda and Sean walked in silence for a while after that. The horror of retelling this story would have chilled Sean to the core, had it not been for the welcome glow coming from Miranda’s arm in his.
Sean broke the silence. “Grace said she had seen Hill put her car keys in his pocket, so she knew she couldn’t drive to safety.”
“And if she ran out of the Woods, and along the road…” Miranda added.
“In the pitch black…”
“He would have caught her easily.”
“So, she had to spend the entire night hidden among the trees, waiting for daybreak, until someone came along.” Sean sounded genuinely impressed. “She lay on the wet leaves, completely still, not knowing where Hill was at any time.”
“She must have been freezing. As well as terrified.”
Eventually, shortly after sunrise, Grace saw two Australian hikers on the road. They were her first glimpse of salvation, so she ran towards them, screaming to them for help.
The hikers had food, water, and mobile phones.
Her ordeal was finally over.
But Grace’s ordeal, and her salvation, were only the beginning of the mystery.
Sean and Miranda shared their first kiss in the graveyard overlooking the harbour.
Having left the pier, they had continued their stroll past the moored boats, and up the hill. They were still arm-in-arm. Once they arrived at the corner of Church Street, Miranda veered Sean to the right. “I want to see what’s up here,” she said.
The couple approached the gates of St. Mary’s Church as Sean described what he knew of Hill’s arrest.
The Guards took Grace to a doctor in Ballyboden. The doctor did some tests, and discovered that the bite had been hard enough to break the skin on Hill’s thumb. Forensics discovered small traces of his dried blood between Grace’s teeth. Thanks to the DNA this provided, as well as Grace’s own account of the attack, the Prosecutor confidently sought, and secured, Hill’s conviction.
“There’s a lot about this case that the public has never heard,” Sean said. “A lot of very strange stuff.”
“This is the bit that I most want to hear,” Miranda declared. “You can tell me about it in here.” They had reached the locked gate of the old graveyard. The ruined church building sat at the foot of a path below them.
“In there?” Sean said. “That’s a bit weird, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied, her voice all cool certainty and mischief. “But I like graveyards. All that atmosphere! All that mystery!”
“It’s padlocked,” he said.
“I’m sure it is!” She reached out and casually placed her fingers on the chain. It fell away with ease. The padlock swung inertly open, as if it had not been locked at all. More magic! More intrigue!
As he had done many times already, Sean pushed aside his reservations, and followed Miranda through the gate, and down the stone steps. They walked past the crosses and headstones, to the entrance of the tiny disused church. It was just four ancient walls with no roof. This doorway also had a gate, and it too was secured with a padlock. Old and rusted, the lock was attached to a sliding bolt. Miranda grabbed the bolt and slid it across, the metal apparently passing through the loop of the padlock, leaving it dangling – still locked – from the hole in the gate’s frame. Sean had seen magicians perform this trick, but never this close up.
She led him by the hand into a corner of the ruin, where they could not be seen from any angle. Miranda pressed her back against the stone wall.
“Finally, a bit of real privacy,” she whispered. “PDAs are so vulgar.”
She took his cheek in her hand, and moved her lips towards his. It was Sean’s first kiss since Cathy’s death and, quite naturally, his first ever in a graveyard. Of course, the moment, in its awkwardness, fell short of perfection – the brief click of their glasses causing them a brief pause and a snigger. Sean raised his specs to his forehead, out of harm’s way and, wearing a half-embarrassed half-smile, moved towards her again.
He had intended to kiss her briefly, as a way of getting the first, most nerve-wracking one out of the way, but she held him for a few seconds longer than expected. It felt better, more natural, that way.
He then stepped back to look at her. Her clothes were not plain black, as he had earlier imagined. The clouds had finally parted, allowing the full moon to brighten the night, and to brighten Miranda. He could see hints of purple almost glowing from within the fabric of her dress, which reached down past her knees, like garb worn by a member of some narrow religious sect – a total contrast to the person she really was. It was as if the light had released the hidden shade, freeing it. In the moonlight, her clothes seemed to match the colour of her lipstick, and the frame of her glasses.
“How very purple,” he said.
“I like purple,” she whispered.
They kissed again. This time, it was less awkward. For the first time in decades, he fe
lt like one of the cool characters from his favourite books.
They kissed a few more times, each one more wonderful than the last.
Then they held each other for a few moments. Through the old stone walls, the sounds of the world seemed distant, as if the business of other lands were nothing to do with them. The only people near them had been resting in the clay for a long time.
Sean sensed that Miranda was about to speak, but he cut in before she could. He wanted to prevent her from asking him to continue. Most of what remained of the tale was secret, known to only a select group. The telling of it needed to be his decision to make.
His face close to hers, he resumed in a whisper. “The Guards had been searching for years for the bodies of women and children who had disappeared in that part of the country. They just hadn’t known where to look. The attack on Grace gave them a place to start.”
In the days after the attack, Sean told her, that part of the glade had revealed a total of four women, all buried in a single small, tight space. Nearby, they located a second site, this one containing four more victims. One was a twelve-year-old girl. Another was a young boy who had gone missing along with his mother. The boy was only five. The earliest known victim had disappeared eleven years earlier. It looked as if Hill was about to inaugurate a third burial site, with Grace as its first occupant.
With shock and revulsion, along with the reluctant excitement of discovery, those charged with uncovering the corpses found that, although the fabric had been partially rotted, all of the victims – except for the little boy – had a red silk scarf tied around their throats. It had been used to strangle them. By contrast, the boy’s head had been bashed in with a rock.