Eventually, Ruen approached me. I held my face in my hands. He patted my shoulder.
‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You weren’t to know.’ Then he turned and sniffed. ‘You can make it up to me.’
24
THE NEWSPAPERS
Anya
I wake with a shout. A glance at the clock beside my bed causes momentary confusion as to the actual day. A quick calculation proves that I have been asleep for fifteen hours. Impossible.
I roll upright and look out the window. Bright sunshine lighting up the small park beneath my apartment block, cars threading along the motorway to Dublin, small and bright as boiled sweets. The River Lagan flicks to my right like a silver scarf, and the city sits in the distance, a cluster of bridges and boats, mint-green domes of old buildings and shining skyscrapers.
On mornings like this, Belfast reminds me of an old fable I once heard of identical twin sisters, separated at birth. After many years they were reunited, one haggard and hunched from years of service, her face dull and drawn, her eyes hollow and black. The other sister turned heads wherever she went, her eyes shining, her smile bright, her posture straight and upright. The beautiful sister made the haggard sister realise how she too could appear, and so she became beautiful for the first time in her life. There are many times when Belfast is that haggard, weathered sister, but there are days when you can catch a glimpse of the other sister’s beauty.
The events of yesterday hit me like a cold shower. The sensation of passing out on the floor. Poppy. The man in the music room.
The missing piece of music.
I blitz slices of apple, kiwi and pineapple in my new blender and drink it while checking my phone for missed calls. The same unknown caller with the unfamiliar number is there. I dial it.
After five rings, someone answers.
‘Anya, hi. It’s Karen, Karen Holland.’
Karen, I think with a groan.
‘Sorry, Karen,’ I say, my voice still husky from too long in bed. ‘I haven’t found anything yet. Alex is at MacNeice House …’
‘I’ve found something,’ she said quickly. ‘I think it’s quite important. Do you have time for a chat?’
I glance at my watch. ‘I’ve a meeting in twenty minutes. Can I see you later this afternoon?’
‘Perfect.’
When I hang, up the events of the day before continue to rain down on me, stark and unnerving.
For even after a solid fifteen hours’ sleep, I know I saw Poppy: I know I felt her hands on my face; I heard her voice; I smelled her hair, her breath. But I have no idea how to explain it. Nor do I understand the encounter with the old man. His face, rock-like, ancient, and those terrible empty eyes, all still throbbing in my head with a vibrancy I can’t erase.
I had told Melinda about the old man’s visit to the practice room shortly after I regained consciousness. She checked the visitor’s register at reception, then CCTV footage, even contacted every security guard posted around the campus. When she couldn’t find any trace of him, we reported it to the police.
‘Ruen?’ the police officer had asked as I sat in Melinda’s office nursing another coffee. She was sceptical. ‘As in R-U-E-N?’
‘That’s the only name he gave.’
‘And about how old?’
‘Somewhere between mid seventies and early eighties,’ I said.
‘Did he have a knife?’
I sighed. It sounded ridiculous just then. I didn’t mention anything of our conversation, nor how I felt. I thought of kidnap victims who discovered they had been taken hostage not at gunpoint but by the barrel of a whiteboard marker pressed against their neck. Sometimes the imagination is the true predator.
Melinda asked to speak to me for a moment and the police officer stepped aside.
‘This guy,’ Melinda said. ‘Did he really give his name?’
‘Yes,’ I said with conviction, then doubt crept in. Perhaps he hadn’t said he was Ruen. Perhaps he hadn’t said his name at all.
‘Are you sure?’ she said. ‘It’s just that from your descriptions it sounds like it could be one of the visiting professors.’
‘He knew my name,’ I interjected. ‘He called me Anya.’
‘Your name would have been on the booking sheet on the door, wouldn’t it?’ Melinda said quickly. ‘The school’s VPs don’t come in that often and sometimes they just turn up. Some of them are very, very old. There’s this one man who sounds very similar … He’s a little, well, weird.’
‘Have you got a picture of him?’
She nodded her head at the computer on her desk. I told the police officer to excuse us as we both walked around the other side to face the screen. Melinda gave the mouse a wave to shake the screensaver, then typed a name into the search bar. A few seconds later, the school’s banner appeared in a web browser, followed by a list of staff and their photographs. Melinda scrolled down to a section marked ‘Visiting Professors’ and clicked on a small thumbnail.
‘Here,’ she said. The page reloaded. Staring back at me was a bald man, smiling, his grey eyes shielded by thick black glasses. A similar tombstone-shaped mouth, his top gum broader than his small yellow teeth. He was wearing a bow tie and tweed jacket. I leaned towards the screen, my heart racing.
‘This is Professor Franz Amsel,’ she said. ‘He gave a paper at the music department a couple of nights ago. Do you think it might have been him?’
I looked over the wide smile and the glasses. The man I had seen looked older than this, I told Melinda. She scoffed.
‘Most of these guys send us photos that are older than me,’ she said ruefully. ‘I know Professor Amsel is in his seventies, at least.’
‘But he said he composed the music,’ I spluttered, desperate to recall the event more accurately, devoid of emotion.
Melinda held up a hand. ‘Let me contact him, find out if he was here yesterday.’
I swallowed and nodded in agreement. At the other end of the room, the police officer tapped her foot. Melinda lifted the phone and dialled a number, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
‘Hi, Professor? This is Melinda Kyle here at the School of Music at Queen’s University. Yeah, hi there. I was just wondering if you visited one of our practice rooms yesterday morning, we’re just in a little pickle with security for not keeping our register of guests up to date. Uh-huh.’ She nodded deeply. ‘You were here.’ I felt my heart sink. She looked relieved. ‘Oh, thank heavens. No, nothing. That’s OK Professor. I’ll tell her. Thank you.’ She set down the phone and rolled her eyes. ‘He extends his deepest apologies and hopes he didn’t upset you.’
Melinda threw me a smile while she approached the police officer, explaining in a smooth, affable voice that we’d had a little misunderstanding.
I sat numbly on the chair behind her desk, looking at the image of the professor on the screen. There was no denying the similarity.
I felt utterly, ridiculously stupid. How could I have let myself stray so far from reason? How could I have believed that the man was … The thought of it was crazy now, and I felt angry at myself. Much later, I would leave my anger behind and feel harrowed with fear at the workings of my own brain. If I couldn’t keep it together, what future had I as a child psychiatrist? How could I ever hope to rebuild the lives of others by helping them piece together their sense of what was real and what wasn’t if I didn’t know the difference myself?
My phone rings as I leave Karen Holland’s classroom seven hours later, having chatted with her for almost an hour. What she has showed me there makes me want to run back to MacNeice House and speak to Alex immediately. I have already tried contacting Trudy Messenger, but to no avail, and so when the phone goes I assume it is her.
‘Trudy, I need to tell you something about Alex Broccoli’s father …’
A cough on the other end of the line. ‘It’s Ursula.’
‘Oh. Is something wrong?’
A pause. ‘I need to speak to you immediately, if that’s all rig
ht. Are you on your way back now?’
‘Can I ask what this is about?’ I say. ‘Just I have some calls to make …’
‘I’ll speak to you when you get here,’ she replies stiffly, then hangs up. I make the journey back at a light trot, unable to merely walk.
At MacNeice House I meet Ursula in the foyer and sign into the register.
‘You want to chat in your office?’ I ask, taking off my jacket.
She smiles. ‘Why don’t we chat in yours?’
Inside my office I move the last of the boxes of books from the coffee table and invite her to sit down. I notice her surveying my posters and the dog-eared, incomprehensible paintings given to me by some patients as thank yous for their treatment – a gift much more meaningful than any other.
‘How have you settled back into Northern Ireland?’ Ursula asks, clasping her hands.
I pour us both a cup of water and sit down opposite her, catching my breath. I am still wearing my jogging shoes.
‘I’m actually settling back home far easier than I would have imagined,’ I tell her brightly. ‘You never know, I might even stay.’
It is a light joke, offered to break the tension. She presses her lips together.
‘I heard about what happened yesterday. At the university.’
I hold her gaze, feeling my heart sink. My excitement at the progress made in Alex’s assessment withers. ‘Yes,’ I respond after a long, contemplative pause. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t felt myself lately.’
I explain to her about my unfurnished flat, how I still haven’t properly unpacked. About my patients. About my progress with Xavier’s case, the effectiveness of art therapy on our newest inpatient Ella. About Alex’s situation.
‘In fact,’ I tell her, ‘I’ve just had a meeting with one of Alex’s old school teachers. I think I’ve made a huge breakthrough in his assessment.’
‘I’m sure you have,’ she says, reviewing her nails. ‘But I’m afraid I have severe concerns about your ability to proceed with this case, Anya.’ She lifts her eyes and I see nothing but disappointment. ‘I’d like you to take a small period of sick leave.’
‘Sick leave?’
‘You must understand that your episode, or whatever it was, was … well, it was worrying, frankly. Both in terms of the future of our practice and in terms of your own personal health. Any time police are involved it raises the level of seriousness a little, and with the kinds of funding bids MacNeice House is making, and with the recent interest from the Health Minister, we don’t want it to look as if – and forgive me – the lunatics are running the asylum.’
I am stunned. I go to respond to her, but no words come. Instead, my mind turns of its own accord to what I have just seen in Karen Holland’s classroom less than an hour ago – a photocopy of a newspaper from December 2001, bearing the headline RUINED PEOPLE’S LIVES. Beneath it was a large photograph of a shooting in action: a masked man by a car pointing a gun at a policeman. ‘Read it,’ Karen had said.
Yesterday afternoon two policemen lost their lives in what the Deputy First Minister described as a ‘monstrous act of hate targeted at the newly-formed PSNI’ at a checkpoint outside Armagh. Sergeant Martin Kerr, 29, the father of a two-week-old girl, was wounded by a single shot to the forehead at close range. Sergeant Eamonn Douglas, 47, died from his injuries last night at the Armagh County Hospital. Two men – Alex Murphy, 30, from North Belfast, and Michael Matthews, 69, from County Kerry – were charged this morning with first-degree murder.
I had lowered the newspaper and looked at Karen.
‘It’s the same headline as Alex’s painting,’ she said.
I frowned. ‘But why would Alex be so disturbed by this?’
She opened a laptop on her desk and clicked on an internet icon. ‘I found this online,’ she said, opening a new page. I watched as the screen filled with rain-smeared footage of a calm street in Belfast, a church visible on the right side of the road, a post office on the other. The screen blurred as several women walked past pushing prams, their chatter audible but muffled through glass. Two policemen were on the road, stopping traffic and chatting to the drivers before letting them pass on. For a moment it seemed as if nothing was out of the ordinary – it was just another checkpoint, like so many I had witnessed in Belfast. A small figure in a red school jumper was visible outside the metal fencing of the church and a little girl in a white dress stood in the doorway of the post office.
Then, a blue car rolled up towards the checkpoint. Only one of the policemen stepped out. The other one remained at the side of the road and folded his arms. I watched, my throat growing dry, as a masked man jumped from the passenger side of the car. He pulled out a gun, pointing it at the policeman in front of him. For a moment he hesitated, and the screen blurred as people ran past the camera, positioned, I suspected, in the back of the police van. A gunshot resounded, cracking the windscreen of the blue car. The masked man hesitated, lifting his gun. A few seconds later, there was the low, sinister crack of a gunshot, and the first policeman on the road crumpled to the ground. A second crack. Someone pulled the young girl inside the post office. The policeman by the roadside flung his arms out and fell. The gunman paused and turned his head to the boy by the church, and I gasped, afraid that the boy would be next. The gunman lowered his weapon, taking a step backwards, perturbed by this young witness. The driver of the car signalled at him, and he promptly got into the car and sped off.
The footage had cut from there to a mugshot of the killer, a surly-looking man in his late twenties, strong lips, startling blue eyes and a feminine jaw, his shoulders well defined. His name flashed beneath the photograph in white letters: ALEX MURPHY. I leaned closer, noticing a familiarity about the eyes, the slightly turned-out ears.
The footage cut again to a journalist holding an umbrella with one hand and a microphone with the other. ‘It seems a dissident faction of the IRA was involved in what happened in this very spot just yesterday afternoon, when a masked terrorist opened fire on two policemen, supposedly in anticipation of their finding a heavy arsonal transported illegally from the southern border …’
I tapped the spacebar on the keyboard, pausing the film. I had needed a moment to take in what I had seen. To understand its meaning. Karen walked across the room to close a window that was beginning to let in the din of the school run. I fumbled with the YouTube tabs, anxious to rewind the footage. There was something about the pixellated figure at the fence of the church, something familiar.
‘Can we zoom in on this?’ I asked Karen. She pressed something on the screen, enlarging the image. The picture was pixellated, but I was certain I knew that young, terrified face.
‘You know, I recalled after our last meeting something Alex said more than once,’ Karen offered. ‘He said that his mother repeatedly told him that he was similar to his father. That he had his dad in him. What do you make of that?’
I hit the spacebar, starting the footage from the beginning again. Alex learning of his father’s crime was one thing, but witnessing it … Even if he had somehow been present, there was every chance he would have blacked it out.
The footage refused to give up the boy’s face. I turned to Karen.
‘I think Alex knows his father was a murderer.’
*
‘… just a couple of months,’ Ursula is saying, and suddenly I am snapped back into my office at MacNeice House, listening to her make arrangements for my replacement while I ‘recuperated’.
‘Ursula,’ I interrupted, keeping my voice and my gaze firm. ‘I found out something this afternoon about Alex’s childhood that affects everything about this case.’
She removes her glasses. ‘Oh?’
‘A new element of his past has arisen that puts everything about his condition in a completely new light. I need to speak to him and his mother as a matter of urgency.’
‘You can write a report for Alex’s new consultant,’ she says with a heavy sigh. ‘I’m sorry, Anya. But it’s impo
rtant that we remain vigilant as to the health of our staff as well as our patients. I’ll email you the relevant forms for occupational health.’ She rises to her feet. ‘I’ll initiate your period of sick leave with immediate effect.’ Then, with a tilt of her head: ‘Much better than an enforced absence. Or being fired.’
I close my mouth. She eyes me coolly before walking out.
25
SWAPPING CARDS
Alex
Dear Diary,
Our new house is gone. Gone gone gone gone gone gone gone gone.
Michael just came to MacNeice House to tell me. He said he was very sorry and swore a lot and said his so-called friend quit his job so the new person saw that we hadn’t moved in yet and moved me and Mum down ‘the list’, as it wasn’t really fair that some people were waiting for a house while we were in hospital. I just nodded as he walked up and down my room with his hands making fists, and then as soon as he’d finished I ran to the bathroom and threw up all my lunch.
Michael said he’d try really really hard to make sure we get a house just like it. ‘But I loved that house,’ I told him. He took a big breath and bent his knees so our faces were at the same level and his knees made a big crack.
‘I know you loved that house, Alex,’ he said. ‘It’s just the council decided …’ He made a fist and pressed it into his mouth and I wondered if he was actually going to bite himself. ‘There are loads of new houses being built at the minute in Belfast. Lots of beautiful houses just like this one.’ Then he leaned forward and I could see his green eyes and I felt a bit better because they told me I could trust him. ‘I promise you, Alex,’ he said. ‘I will make sure you get moved to a better place.’
‘But Mum liked that house, too,’ I said, and I knew Michael already knew this but it was much more important than whether I liked it or not. I felt for a moment like I could hardly breathe and I was scared because I knew Mum would be upset. Michael stood up and said something else but I didn’t hear because I was thinking of Mum sitting in the swing next to me at the park. It was a long time ago and both of us were swinging ourselves higher and higher. It didn’t matter to me if I could swing higher, it just mattered that I could hear her laughing.
The Boy Who Could See Demons Page 24