Falling Suns

by J. A. Corrigan

  ‘That’d be nice. Call me Amanda, Mr Abbs.’ I tried to emphasise his authority.

  ‘And you, Amanda, can call me Toby.’

  He whisked me off. I hoped Abbs couldn’t see my thundering heart underneath the cheap cotton of my greyed shirt.

  I hoped Hemmings would not see my hatred.

  In the ten minute walk to the other end of the institution I changed fully into the role of Amanda. I told myself that Joe’s peace depended on it. After all this I would be able to let my Joe go, let myself go. Allow Joe to stop visiting me in the dead of night because I sensed he didn’t want to. Joe wanted to go to a place of which I had questioned the existence, but he told me about the ‘place’, whispering of its peace and serenity. But also he told me in fragmented and hushed tones about the other place. A place he was not destined to go.

  To allow love, is what would free him, Joe had said. Or did I say? This isn’t so, Joe, I told him. Told myself. I have to do this.

  Last night, my seven-year-old son kissed me on my burning cheek in the cold hotel bed, and murmured something I did not catch. I was so sure of the kiss. The rest of the night I’d tried to decipher what he’d said. But it was gone. As was Joe.

  If ever he’d been there.

  —

  I didn’t see Michael Hemmings. I scanned the ward, noting the homeliness of each bed section, the wonderful light that fell in through oblong, clean windows, but I could not see him.

  Abbs saw my confusion. ‘Thought you’d have seen a photo of him ... at least.’

  ‘It was grainy.’

  ‘Over there, at the end. Hemmings has the best spot, next to the window.’

  Joe’s murderer sat on the edge of his bed. Long blond hair cascading onto his shoulders. ‘There?’ I nodded towards him. He’d aged, looked almost a different person. Face thinner, eyes watery and sunken deep into a blank-looking face.

  ‘Ah, I see,’ Abbs said. ‘Yes, he wears a wig. Changes it every so often. But always blond. You probably saw a picture of him bald. Like a baby.’ He watched me. ‘Hemmings is no baby, though.’

  ‘Oh, I get it. Well, he sure looks better with hair.’ The wig was a different style from the ones he’d worn in court. Lines covered his cheeks, his skin grey. But he was leaner, and as his face looked older, his body appeared younger. I’d not been the only one who’d been working on their fitness.

  Abbs looked at me. ‘I wouldn’t be getting any ideas.’ His eyes strayed towards the red strap of my bra. ‘You’re a woman. I read your letters, Amanda. Michael’s interested in your past. Feels like you could do with a friend.’

  We approached the bed. Hemmings looked up nonchalantly and smiled at Amanda’s forehead and in the reflection of the big window, I saw her. Back curved. Too much make-up. Large breasts. Skinny hips. The antithesis of Rachel. The antithesis of Margaret.

  And then he looked me directly in the eyes.

  ‘At last. Amanda.’ He got up and held out his hand. I was sure Amanda wouldn’t shake hands. I felt my left arm move. Just a flicker. Then I moved towards him, ignoring his hand, and hugged him slightly, kissing him on the cheek. He smelt of semen and cigarettes. He was taken aback but gathered himself. ‘Touchy feely, are we?’ He threw a look towards Abbs. ‘She’ll fit in well here, won’t she, Toby?’

  Abbs coloured, his entire face matching the cochineal red of the volatile acne. ‘Maybe. Don’t get carried away now, you two. You have just under an hour,’ he glanced at Hemmings.

  It was difficult to see who was the patient (Abbs had informed me all the inmates were patients – this is an NHS hospital, don’t forget that, he’d said) and who was the carer; the line undoubtedly smudged.

  I flung a curious look around the ward, taking in the other patients, and tried to hide my disgust when I saw an old man in a bed at the far end of the room openly masturbating; the man from the waiting room sitting in the chair next to him seemingly oblivious. Although it wasn’t this public display that shocked me, but the viciousness of the man’s handling of himself. Blood apparent on his hands, and on ruffled sheets that hid nothing.

  Like the man, Abbs ignored the massacre. ‘I’ll be in the office if you need me, but I’m sure you won’t.’ He hung around for a few more seconds. Hemmings raised his eyebrow and Abbs strode back up the ward, disappearing into an office.

  Hemmings was now perched on the end of his bed, legs jutted out straight. He’d put the tip of his thumb in his mouth. I rearranged my blouse.

  ‘So, Amanda McCarthy from Ohio.’

  The thumb remained and he stared at the floor. When, finally, he did lift lifeless eyes an undisclosed fear shot through me. Michael Hemmings looked straight into me. What do I want? Why do I want to do it?

  ‘Yep, that’s where I’m from,’ I said shakily.

  His gaze moved towards my cleavage. ‘I don’t want sex.’

  I felt the rapid blinking of my eyes and knew if I could see my pupils they’d be fully dilated. ‘I fig ... figured that, not from me,’ I stuttered.

  ‘You do know what I want, don’t you?’

  ‘To tell you about my dead fucking husband, what he did to my youngest son?’

  ‘You said he didn’t touch your children?’

  What had I expected? Small talk? That was not why he had agreed to see Amanda.

  ‘Well now mister, I didn’t tell ya everything.’

  I’d found it impossible to write about Noah. It was a step I was unable, and unwilling, to take.

  He moved forwards on the bed. ‘Well, that’s not very nice, is it?’

  A strand of hair fell over my eyes; I pushed it away. Hemmings watched my left arm move back to my side. Damn. ‘Well, sir, I didn’t wanna tell you everything, had to leave somethin’ now, didn’t I?’

  Disconcertingly, he continued to make eye contact. My right eyelid began to flicker. I pressed it hard. This wasn’t going well.

  ‘As long as you don’t leave too much out ... Amanda.’

  I couldn’t stand his gaze and flung my eyes around the ward. The old man now lay stroking a flaccid, bloodied penis. The man visiting him was reading a magazine. ‘Nice place here.’

  ‘Does old Gerald over there bother you?’

  ‘No. Seen worse.’

  ‘Or heard of worse?’

  My eyelid carried on twitching uncontrollably. ‘Seen and been through worse, Michael.’

  The mention of his name seemed to cause him to finally look at my forehead.

  ‘Ah ... yes, now you must tell. It’s stopped raining. Shall we go into the garden, have a chat? And maybe, if you’re a good girl, I might tell you about what I did.’

  I wavered, bit my lip, wanting to kill him there and then. I said, ‘That’d be great.’ He sounded like a vicar inviting his parishioner out for a stroll to talk about the flora. I struggled. And wondered where Amanda had disappeared to.

  On the walk to the gazebo she found me. Amanda would be able to cope with what Michael Hemmings contemplated telling me.

  But he didn’t tell me about his crime. Thank God. He listened intently as Amanda told him about her dead husband and the boyfriend from death row. He was ravenous for every detail, and Amanda delivered. In the damp and gaily painted gazebo, in the grounds of a psychiatric institution, she told him. Time went too slowly and, after what seemed like an eternity, Michael Hemmings seemed satisfied.

  ‘That’s all really fascinating, we must talk again soon.’ He stopped, registering the approach of Abbs. ‘You might be able to fit another visit in here.’

  ‘Might?’ The moment I felt the jubilation that he was going to confide in me was the same instant I wished he would not.

  ‘I’m out of here soon, it seems.’ Again, he looked at Abbs who was now standing in front of us. ‘Isn’t that right, Toby? I’m off?’

  Abbs gaze was on Hemmings, and the look of entrapment in the young man’s eyes both saddened and repulsed me.

  ‘That’s right. That was Michael’s news, Amanda. Mr Miller’ll see you o
ff the ward. Security will check you on the way out.’ He looked back at Hemmings. ‘Come on, Michael.’

  I watched as the two men walked away.

  ‘You would like to see me again, wouldn’t you Michael?’ I shouted to their backs but they didn’t hear, or ignored me.

  I made my way outside the institution and the fresh, strong wind hit me with a welcome ferocity.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  London

  March 2005

  Jonathan pushed open the door of the flat with his foot. As he did so, his mobile, which he was clutching in one hand, his keys in the other, began to buzz. Harry Broomsgrove’s name popped onto his screen. He let it go to voicemail. Waited for exactly the count of twenty; that was the average length of a voicemail, he’d found, then listened to the message.

  Harry was enquiring if he’d had a nice holiday. Sarcastic sod. He wanted Jonathan in the office tomorrow for a ‘chat’. He had another few weeks of leave; had the reptile forgotten? As he stared at the mobile it began to shake again. Again, he left it. Again, he counted to twenty. Again, it was Harry.

  Need you in, assignment for you. Topical at the moment. NHS disallowing smoking in would-be mums who are receiving IVF treatment.

  Christ. Jonathan tapped the return-call button. ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Ah, you. Nice holiday?’ Harry replied in a croaky voice.

  ‘Can’t you find someone else to do it?’

  ‘Why, you given up your job? Didn’t notice any resignation letter.’

  ‘I still have couple of weeks left, Harry.’

  Silence.

  Jonathan grunted into the phone. ‘So, what’s this about the NHS thing?’

  ‘I want you to do it, shouldn’t take long, and then I won’t bother you until after your ... annual leave. Deal?’

  Harry wasn’t being a bastard; Jonathan knew his editor didn’t have free reporters at the moment. He thought about the above-inflation pay rise Harry had given him four months before. Absentmindedly, he pulled a wipe from its holder on the hall table and cleaned the screen of his phone.

  ‘OK.’

  Harry continued. ‘Whatever you’re up to ... will there be something for me?’

  ‘Patience, Harry, I’ll be in later.’ Jonathan disconnected.

  The NHS story might be helpful. He could root around the mental health system, too. There was a less secure psychiatric unit near to the hospital where the IVF was supposed to be taking place. The hospital had strong ties with the unit, dating back twenty years to when it housed its own. If he asked the right questions he might find something out about the protocol.

  Jonathan paced into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Empty shelves greeted him. He’d do this thing for Harry and then check out the Cambri School of Voice Coaching and Acting. He had a hunch that Rachel’s interest in the school was not a coincidence, and not just a newly revived interest in acting. And that Amanda McCarthy, the name in Marek’s personal diary, was Rachel. That the ‘R’ going to Malina’s was Rachel. Malina had told him nothing but Kacper had told him enough.

  That was his plan, to Cambri, and then to see Tom Gillespie, speak to Charlotte again. He knew she was in the States. A phone call was fine.

  He’d also received, and it’d been a surprise, an email from Morley. He’d told him about a case from a long time ago, even before the Asian bride. A known paedophile had ‘helped’ with info on a case Rachel wasn’t working on, and subsequently investigations into his activities were watered down. Rachel hadn’t been happy. She waited a year, maybe more, before – rumour had it – she ensured he was implicated in a wider paedo ring that was operating in that area.

  Rachel certainly had attitude, and balls. And a strong sense of taking things into her own hands. It seemed that she’d set the paedo up beautifully, ensuring that the unit investigating found more than he actually held in his mangy flat. The rumour spread that the evidence had been planted, but it was never substantiated. Gillespie managed to entomb everything, as he’d managed to do with the husband of the Asian bride. Morley had made it clear that there was no point in him making a fuss. No one cared. The guy was a paedo that was for sure. Secretly, Morley said, everyone was aware of Rachel’s involvement. She’d gone to that much trouble for a family and child she had absolutely nothing to do with, need I say more? Morley had written.

  Jonathan thought about calling Gillespie now, and decided against it, but did decide to call Charlotte Gayle. He checked the time difference. Five-thirty here in London, seven hours behind. It would be ten thirty in the morning on the west coast.

  He dialled her mobile from his landline.

  ‘Hi, Charlotte Gayle speaking.’

  ‘Charlotte, it’s Jonathan Waters.’

  A pause. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Are you in contact with Rachel?’

  Another pause.

  He carried on. ‘I think you might be. I’m finding stuff out, stuff I can’t discuss on the phone. Rachel could be in trouble and I want to help her.’ He waited a second. ‘And so should you.’

  ‘Look,’ she hesitated. ‘I have a PO Box for her.’ A rustle on the phone.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s something that should become known ... I was going to call Tom Gillespie, but I was unsure.’ The line went quiet for a few seconds. ‘I told Liam to contact Gillespie, to tell him.’

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘I can’t talk about this on the phone. But I’m worried about Rachel, too. I’ve meetings I have to stay here for, but I’ll come home as soon as I can, and talk with you.

  ‘Be easier if you told me now. Is this something about Liam?’

  ‘We’ll speak soon,’ she said.

  ‘I think she plans to kill him,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Liam?’

  ‘No, Michael Hemmings.’

  Why did she think Liam?

  ‘I’ll be home as soon as I can, Jonathan.’ She hung up.

  Jonathan threw the phone on the sofa. Something was going down with the twat, Liam, and he thought he knew what it might be. He felt Rachel’s pain; he felt it as if he was feeling it himself. He wanted to hold her, protect her, love her. He wanted to save her, from everything and everyone.

  —

  It took Jonathan a little longer than he’d anticipated to finish the NHS assignment. He wasn’t sure if this was because he had absolutely no interest in the subject, or because most of his time had been spent at the psych unit a mile down the road from the hospital asking questions. The unit was closely affiliated with Broadmoor in Berkshire. The opportunity to find out more about the inner workings of the mental health system was God-given.

  Jonathan had always assumed that the people who went into these institutions never came out. He was wrong. There seemed to be a whole system of which the public in general had absolutely no knowledge. Joe Public had their eyes on the headline offenders – the patients that would never see the light of day again, who would spend the rest of their lives within these institutions. Although, there had been several cases where, not that many years after trial, ‘patients’ who had previously been detained ‘without limit of time’, were later put in an institution – being diagnosed with a personality disorder, rather than a ‘mental disorder’ or with ‘severe mental health problems’ – and so viable to be considered for a tribunal review.

  Those patients deemed to be cured, or on the way to recovery, were duly sent to an independent step-down psychiatric unit. Like the one near to the hospital Jonathan was investigating. It mattered not how heinous the original crime had been. If a panel of experts, including a specialist judge, decided the patient was ‘treatable’ and was responding to treatment, then that patient had the opportunity to present his/her case, and if that outcome was positive, he or she could be offered a place in one of these units. This could then lead to the offender having much more freedom; mixing with the public with a ‘shadow’ or chaperone. And, eventually, as long as they did not live or visit
the area where the crime was committed, the patient could, in theory, attain full freedom. Jonathan had spoken at length with psychiatrists at the independent unit, and with a few of the patients. It appeared well-run. Broadmoor seemed a world away from the chaos at Littleworth, thank Christ, he thought.

  Hemmings had already attended one tribunal and was soon to sit his second. Rachel understood the implications of this, and it was the reason why, five years after the devastating and brutal murder of her son, she had ‘disappeared’.

  His quest to find Rachel was turning into something more. He found himself thinking about Michael Hemmings’ trial – the prosecution had never pinned down his real motivation for killing Joe. The evidence was circumstantial; the conviction had relied heavily on Hemmings’ confession. Now Jonathan wasn’t sure what had motivated Joe’s murder. His recent research implied that in high likelihood motivation existed, no matter how warped it might turn out to be.

  —

  It was a few more days before Jonathan had time to go to Cambri – Harry had landed him with an unexpected editorial, too. He’d called the school and spoken with a Stanley Fishel. Jonathan explained that he was writing an article about small businesses and tax evasion.

  He was meeting Fishel later that afternoon.

  He tapped his mobile rhythmically, thinking about the information he’d unearthed about Cambri. For the last five years, they had been doing something quite creative with their accounts. It seemed the small school was not paying all the tax that it should. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use the information to elicit his own from Mr Fishel. He hoped Mr Fishel had some information.

  Jonathan had done more ferreting around on the computer, and managed to find on Marek’s records a telephone number for an address near the school, registered to Langfen Xú. Rachel must have called Mrs Xú from the clinic in Warsaw. He’d conjectured that was where ‘Amanda’ was, or had been, staying, mainly because after more investigating, he knew Mrs Xú took in paying guests, short term stays only.