“When you say you don’t know what to do,” says the voice behind the curtain slowly, “do you mean you don’t know whether to confront your father about it? Or maybe whether to go to the police?”
“No, no, I couldn’t do either of those.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s dead.”
“Who’s dead?
“My dad.”
“I see,” he says, but of course he doesn’t see at all.
“When did he die?”
“Last Friday.”
“Oh… so recent… I’m sorry.”
“The thing is, my dad might not have done it. I don’t know.”
“Who do you think he might have killed?”
“My mother.”
I don’t need to see his face to know the silence that follows is a shocked one. I tell him it all then, in the darkness, the words tumbling out in a jumble of thoughts and suspicions and ideas and fears. Da. Mother. Sarah. He says little apart from an occasional prompt, a question, a clarification. I cry but it feels good. I am telling everything to a stranger who I will never have to see again. Dumping. Unloading.
Someone for whom this discussion has absolutely no consequences. That is the beauty of it.
“Priests and counsellors,” I sniff eventually. “You’re indispensable.”
“But only one of us is free, eh?”
“Oh good. I wasn’t sure.”
I hear him laugh, a wheezy laugh.
“All sorts of people come into confession,” he says. “Are you a Catholic?”
“Yeah, a Catholic atheist.”
“Want a Polo mint?” he says.
“No, you’ll see me if I come round for it.”
A packet of Polo mints appears round the side of the grille.
“Here.” It makes me laugh seeing the disembodied hand. It is young, white, thin, clean. Well-shaped nails. The hand of a man whose work involves brain, not brawn.
“What’s your name?”
I hesitate. The beauty is anonymity. No consequences.
“Julie,” I say.
“Okay.” I know that he knows I am lying.
“Yours?”
“Peter.”
“I call you Father Peter?”
“Just Peter. Or Pete.” He breathes hard, takes a gasp of air, blows his nose. “The thing is, Julie, I’m happy to talk to you but I’m not sure your reason for telling me this and what you want from me. People normally talk to me about things they have done themselves. This is about something someone else has done. Or may not have done. You say your parents are both dead. So is your concern that if your father didn’t do it, the real killer is not being brought to justice?”
“No, no, no,” I say, almost fretfully. He is missing the point entirely. “No, I don’t care about him.”
“What do you care about then?”
“About Da. I worry that… if he did it… what might have happened to him now. Now he’s dead.”
“To his soul?”
“I suppose so.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in God?”
“Let’s not split hairs,” I say, bringing my teeth down on the Polo mint. Sounds like gunfire in the stillness of the confessional.
“Sorry. I’m a cruncher.”
“I’m a sucker.”
“Yeah? Well that’s priests for you. How do you eat your After Eights?”
“If nobody’s looking, in one, sideways.”
I smile and wipe a tear away at the same time. .
“You?” he said.
“Nibbles, right corner first.”
“Right.”
Silence.
“Julie,” he says, “we’re having a laugh but I can tell you are actually really upset out there. Do you want to sit in the chair beside me? Just talk normally where we can see one another?”
“No thanks. I’m not being rude. It’s just… easier this way.” Anonymity was always easier. That’s why I kept moving. Once, when I was working away, I went out with a man for six weeks and never told him my real name. I’d said it was Sue the night we met, just for a laugh, thinking we’d never see one another again. I dumped him rather than tell him the truth. I wasn’t sure if I was fed up of him or fed up of Sue.
“I honestly don’t know why I am here,” I continue. “Except grief makes you do funny things, instinctive things, you know? Things that aren’t rational and that in six months’ time you won’t be able to believe you’ve done. Like try to find out what a God you don’t think you believe in may, or may not, do to your dad who may, or may not, have murdered your mother.”
“Okay,” Peter says, and his voice has a sense of purpose. Like he’s been presented with a problem and he is going to solve it. “Let’s say – for the sake of argument – that your father committed a murder. There are two theological issues we have to consider: repentance and penance. Would your father have been sorry?”
“How can I know that?”
“I don’t know if this helps,” he says slowly, “but St Thomas once said, ‘Considering the omnipotence and mercy of God, no one should despair of the salvation of anyone in this life.’ Or something like that.”
“My father was a good man.”
I hear his chair creak as he sits back. “Well, you do know how he felt then. A good man who does a terrible thing feels horror and sorrow and repentance. So now ask, did he do penance for the wrong? Obviously he couldn’t give your mother back her life, like a thief could give back stolen property. But do you think there were other ways in which he paid? Did he pray? Did he make sacrifices?” He paused. “Maybe that’s harder to answer.”
“Harder?” I said, “No, easier. He paid his whole life. He paid with his life. Everything was about me and Sa… about me and my sister. And my sister… she wasn’t even his. He took another man’s child and he looked after her because she was my mother’s. No, he did more than that. He loved her because she was my mother’s. And every time he looked at her, it must have been like looking at him. When he looked at me he saw my mother, and when he looked at my sister he saw her lover. I call that penance.”
“So do I. He sounds… well… he doesn’t sound like a man who would have committed murder easily.”
“He wasn’t.”
“Maybe that’s your answer then.”
“I wasn’t saying he did it.”
“I know that. You were just… checking the position.”
“That’s it.” I can smell mint in the air.
“If he had come to you and confessed, and you had given him absolution, what words would you have used?” I am curious. It’s so long. I can’t remember.
“The words we always use in confession.” He begins to recite them softly.
God, the Father of mercies,
through the death and the resurrection of his Son
has reconciled the world to himself
and sent the Holy Spirit among us
for the forgiveness of sins;
through the ministry of the Church
may God give you pardon and peace,
and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father,
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
“Amen,” I say. Even I don’t know if I am being sarcastic or not. Pardon and peace. It sounds appealing even to a sometimes atheist. I want that for Da. Maybe I can be his stand-in.
“The thing is,” he says, “you are confused just now, but perhaps you believe in more than you think.”
“That sounds good,” I say. “What does it mean?”
“Well, right now you don’t know what to believe. I can understand that. But remember, if you have certainty you wouldn’t need faith. And we all need faith.”
I have the feeling he is about to move in on the God bit. I can skip the hard sell. I stand up.
“You’re going now?”
“I’d better. I’m sorry I’ve taken up so much time. There will be a big queue now.”
“If you c
ould just see your way to crying a bit when you go out, it’ll help. They’ll wait till Father Dunn is on because he’s a soft touch.”
“I’ll do my best.” We both know that morning mass has started out there, that there will be no further confessions just now.
“If you need to see me again, you know where I am.”
“Thanks. Thanks for talking.”
“Good luck, Julie. And I’m sorry… sorry about your father. I’ll pray for him.”
I bite my lip. I’ll pray for him. It stirs something in me. I suppose the old Catholic who joins the drunks and goes to mass at midnight on Christmas Eve.
“‘If someone said on Christmas Eve, Come see the oxen kneel…’” I say softly, quoting a Hardy poem we learned at school. But I can’t remember exactly how the last bit goes. His voice cuts in.
“‘I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so,’” he finishes.
“You missed a bit,” I say, frowning, trying to remember.
“That’s the important bit. Hope.”
“You’re going to make me cry again.”
“I’m only thinking of my confession queue.”
“Here, take this.” I stick my hand round his side of the confessional. “It’ll change your life.”
“What is it?” he asks, taking it.
“Clarityn. One a day. Clears the tubes.”
I hear him laugh as I close the door.
Heads swivel as I come out of the confessional, right in the middle of the Creed. My eyes must be red. I wonder what they think I am guilty of, to come out looking like this. I walk quickly down the side aisle with my head down, and out through the swing doors at the back. I look back through the window of the church door and see Father Peter appear from the confessional. Mid thirties, thin, dark hair. Nice. My type, even. But then you know my track record.
He looks around casually but I can tell he is curious; he is scanning faces looking for Julie. I walk quickly down the steps and back into town.
“So,” I think, exhaling deeply. “What the hell was all that about?”
No doubt he is wondering the same.
CHAPTER FOUR
Time for facts. The small notebook in my handbag contains a few scribbled names from the cuttings in the library. Jackie Sandford. Chief Inspector Terry Simons. David Carruthers. Of all of them, Jackie Sandford is the one I really want to talk to. She was obviously my mother’s confidante. There are only two Sandfords in the book, neither of them based in Lochglas. There is an answer at both numbers when I ring, but neither knows Jackie. I phone Lochglas Post Office and asked if anyone there knew a Jackie Sandford who once lived in the village. The voice at the other end sounds young.
“I’ll ask,” she says, and I hear her call across the shop. “Maggie, have you ever heard of a Jackie Sandford in Lochglas?”
There is an exclamation of surprise.
“Jackie Sandford! She moved away years ago.” I hear the voice moving closer to the phone, as if the person is going to take over the receiver. “Who’s asking?” I put the receiver down with a click – I’m not sure why – and it rocks slightly in the cradle.
The disappointment cuts me. But I have only a couple of days. I can’t waste time following up leads that might go nowhere. The number for David Carruthers and Co., chartered accountants, is easy. I hesitate about whether he’s worth phoning.
And he’ll tip Cory off about the fact that I’m here. But then, Cory’s going to know soon enough. I dial.
“Good morning, Carruthers and Co.”
“Hello. Is it possible to speak to Mr Carruthers, please?”
There is a short silence. “David Carruthers?”
“Yes please.”
“I am very sorry, but David Carruthers died about a year ago.”
“Oh I see. I’m sorry… I…” What do I say now? I feel a momentary panic, am unable to think.
“Who’s calling please? Perhaps I can redirect your call for you.”
“No… Well, actually… is Mr Carruthers’s wife still alive?”
I cross my fingers that Mr Carruthers had a wife.
“Yes, she is, but could I ask your name please?”
I am reluctant to give my name. I always am.
“Rebecca Connaghan. Would it be possible to get a number for Mrs Carruthers?”
“I am sorry, I can’t give that information out, but I could pass on a message for you.”
“Yes please. Could you tell her that Rebecca Connaghan would like to speak to her please? Ehm… If you could just say that her husband knew my mother, Kathleen Connaghan.”
“Okay.”
She hasn’t repeated the name. Has she written it down?
“The name is very important.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The name. My mother’s name, Kathleen Connaghan. Can you make sure you give her the name Kathleen Connaghan?”
“And do you have a number Mrs Carruthers can reach you on?”
I give her my mobile then fish in my pocket for the landlady’s card to give her. I want to make sure. I put the phone down feeling dispirited. None of this is going well. I don’t expect to hear from Mrs Carruthers and I don’t know how useful she’d be anyway. One moved. One dead. One unavailable. Not a great hit rate. Maybe Cory is dead, too. But I don’t think so. How do I know? I just do.
I go for a coffee in a posh coffee shop, buy a cake for the price of an entire lunch, and eat it without tasting it. I’ll phone Terry Simons next, but I can’t try and phone Mother’s relatives. If I look up MacKenzie in the Highland phone book, I’ll be here all day. And anyway, it’s not exactly the kind of conversation you can have by phone, is it? Excuse me, do you know who killed my mother?
CHAPTER FIVE
Terry Simons is standing at the window when I see him first. Burly, solid, a strong physical presence that is just on the turn into old age. The broad shoulders are beginning to curl slightly at the edges, like stale sandwiches; the bull neck is collapsing in on itself. He moves freely enough, and yet there is that first, tell-tale stiffness. Without the vigour of youth, the bulk of his body is settling into flab. He wears a short-sleeved shirt, white with a thin maroon check that is picked up by a sleeveless sweater in the same colour. The sweater is pulled tight, straining over a burgeoning paunch.
Simons looks like he suffers from high blood pressure, his bruised cheeks stained the colour of port wine. His hands are tucked into his trouser pockets, as if he’s rattling change in there while he looks out over his garden, out to the green fields beyond, where the construction companies are moving in to build new estates of semis. The window frames him like a glass cage.
He is waiting for me. I see the little start, the way he moves instantly to the door when he spots me. He had agreed speedily, even greedily, when I phoned and mentioned Kathleen Connaghan’s name. This is no intrusion. Simons is glad to be called out of retirement, to be back on police business even for half an hour.
There is the stale smell of fish in the hallway when the door closes. Breakfast kippers maybe, or last night’s cod. The trapped heat, the feeling that the smell is old – how old? – makes me feel vaguely claustrophobic. Perhaps the smell is so ingrained it is simply part of this hall now, like the peach swirled wallpaper and the spindly legged telephone table. There is a sense of a life on view in Terry Simons’ house, but then, I’m looking for clues. Who lives in a house like this? A toddler’s musical rolling toy is trapped under the radiator: a grandchild’s perhaps. Or a neighbour’s? Then a golf trolley with clubs. A circular coat stand with a woman’s raincoat and several umbrellas in the base, one a multi-coloured golf umbrella.
“Miss Connaghan,” says Simons formally, standing back and ushering me in with a wave of his hand, like he’s showing a suspect into a waiting room. There is something about the gesture that irritates me. A sense of authority. Authority always puts my back up.
“Thanks for seeing me, Mr Simons.”
“Not at all. Not at all,”
he says, indicating an armchair for me to sit in. “Glad to meet you.”
We sit with the awkward tension of the just-met. The armchair is in direct sunlight, the blinding shafts streaming through the window and hitting the left side of my face mercilessly. I am too ill at ease to ask if I may move.
“You said on the phone you are retired now, Mr Simons. Are you enjoying it?”
“Oh yes,” he says.
I’m not sure I believe him. He sits down, the change still jangling in his pocket, the fingers working it mechanically. A gesture of suppressed boredom that has become habit. When he sits, a roll of fat hangs over the waistband of his grey trousers, the taut jumper strapping it into place like a sausage in a skin.
“Good to have time with the family,” he says.
I am unconvinced. Terry Simons wears an old man’s carpet slippers on his feet, and an old man’s frustration in his eyes.
“But you miss the work?”
“Sometimes. Yes, sometimes I do.”
He clears his throat. I can tell from his accent that he is not a Highlander. The voice is low and slightly guttural, like mine. Hard-edged. Turns out he moved up from Glasgow for promotion.
As Simons would say, we ‘proceed to business’ quickly. He is full of that kind of robotic talk, speaks as if constantly giving evidence. “I was proceeding along Springburn Avenue…” That kind of thing. He can’t help himself. Thirty-five years a copper. He has a police chief’s confidence, the kind of certainty in his own opinions that simply doesn’t entertain doubt. His homicide clear-up rate as a Chief Inspector was 92 per cent, he says. Kathleen Connaghan was one of the 8 per cent. He makes no allowance for the fact that the statistic he is discussing is my mother.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know who killed her, he says, scrutinising my face for a reaction. I look blankly at him, the sun still beating relentlessly on the side of my face. There’s a steel in his eyes that suddenly shocks me, and a cement-like certainty carved into the crow’s-feet lines. He strikes me as vaguely ridiculous, a man whose sense of himself became too ingrained, too static, in his job. It happens to people in power. Their jobs entail making judgements, and if they don’t learn to trust their instincts they will be paralysed. But then they come to rely on them too much. There’s no room for indecision, and no room for growth because no one questions them any more.
Dead Secret Page 14