Falling Suns

by J. A. Corrigan

  Jonathan was due at Cambri at two-thirty. It was ten and he’d just received a text from Toby Abbs, who’d informed him that an Amanda McCarthy, American from Ohio, had visited Michael Hemmings. Abbs hoped, he’d said in the text, that his help would persuade Jonathan not to say anything to the director about his relationship with Michael Hemmings.

  He had spent the morning researching Amanda McCarthys in Ohio; he found two still alive, but it was the one who had died a few years previously who caught his attention. He’d seen and heard terrible stories in his career, but the American woman’s tale had affected him strongly. He was sure that was the Amanda who Rachel was basing herself on.

  Although the temperature was oddly high for the time of year, London was as grey as it ever was. Jonathan paid and tipped the cabbie who dropped him outside Cambri in Soho.

  Stanley Fishel answered Cambri’s door at exactly two-thirty. Jonathan had been waiting outside for twenty minutes, and he’d had a double espresso from the deli next door and had finished it off.

  ‘Jonathan Waters?’

  ‘Great you could see me,’ Jonathan said, unsmiling.

  Stanley shook his hand. ‘Come through.’

  He followed the ambling but handsome man through to a large kitchen area. Jonathan found it difficult to nail Fishel’s age. Anything between fifty and sixty-five.

  ‘Coffee?’

  Jonathan shook his head.

  ‘I’d like to see some ID,’ Stanley said.

  Jonathan pulled out his NUJ card. Stanley barely looked at it.

  ‘I was surprised you agreed to see me, to be honest.’

  ‘Let us be transparent. Cambri could do without this. We are small. This could ruin us.’ Stanley allowed himself a fey smile. ‘It’s only been the last few years. The rents around here went through the roof five years ago. We struggle.’

  It was now Jonathan’s turn to be transparent. He disliked massive businesses getting away with tax evasion, and didn’t condone what Stanley was doing with his small set-up, but that was not the reason he was here. Although he did hope it might be a reason why Stanley might open up.

  He took in Stanley Fishel’s overall appearance, clocking that he looked like Albert Einstein. ‘There might be something else you could help me with.’

  Stanley grinned. ‘A complimentary course?’

  Jonathan smiled. The guy had a sense of humour. ‘No, I don’t need voice coaching, and I’m not cut out to be an actor.’ He watched the distinguished older man in front of him. ‘And I’m not really interested in small-time tax evasion either.’

  ‘Then what do you want?’

  ‘I want to know if you’ve had an Amanda McCarthy registered here as a student recently.’

  ‘You’re not her husband, are you?’

  ‘I’m Amanda’s friend. It’s a long story.’

  Stanley sipped from a bright yellow mug. ‘She was here a few weeks ago. I liked her.’ He placed the mug deliberately on the table. ‘She said she was researching a book.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t think she was researching a book. Why was Amanda here?’

  ‘Like I said, long story.’ Despite small-time tax evasion, Jonathan had decided almost immediately that he liked this man.

  ‘I’ve got an hour,’ Stanley said.

  Jonathan told Stanley the story that he knew; and the story that he thought he knew, figuring he had nothing to lose.

  Stanley had perched himself on the side of the table. When Jonathan finished he whistled. ‘That would make a great script.’ He watched Jonathan. ‘She did well here. Obviously not a professional, but she learnt quickly. She managed to master a few accents but was most keen on one in particular.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘The Ohio accent.’

  ‘Did you get to know her?’

  ‘I was her teacher. I knew, sensed, Amanda was, almost like two people. Distanced, disconnected.’ Stanley opened a leather satchel that hung over the chair, and pulled out his mobile. ‘I have a photo of her ... here. I took it one day in the school; she was a bit miffed I took it. I was going to ask her if I could use it on our website – an example of our friendly school – but never got around to asking, seeing as she seemed so opposed to having her photograph taken. I gave her a print of it, though.’ Stanley stared at the image. ‘Nice photo, I thought. She left before the end of the course and seemed in a hurry.’ He pointed to his phone. ‘But that’s what she looks like now. ‘What was Amanda ... Rachel like before?’

  Jonathan took the phone and squinted. ‘Nothing like this.’

  ‘Perhaps she looked more like Julia ...’ he smiled gingerly.

  Jonathan’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, ‘Julia?’

  ‘Roberts. Only a small joke between us. I’ve got your mobile number. I’ll forwards this to you.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Jonathan looked at his watch. ‘And if I were you, I’d get a better accountant.’

  ‘I may well do that.’ He stared at Jonathan. ‘Perhaps you should just let her get on with it?’

  ‘I know what you mean, but I can’t.’ He smiled weakly.

  Stanley only nodded and showed Jonathan back to the front entrance.

  Back home, he went through Amanda McCarthy’s details again. She died early 2004. Heroin overdose. Three children, now all living in Pennsylvania. Amanda was a frequent visitor to Chillicote Correctional Facility, visiting Stephen Passaro – a really lovely character – on death row for murdering his wife and three children. He was sizzled in 2003. There had been rumours that Amanda McCarthy had killed her second husband, a sheep farmer in Toledo, by inserting a cattle prod into his anus, and switching it on. Jonathan shivered, and clenched his own bottom.

  He now understood the ‘US’ in Gorski’s diary. Amanda/Rachel was American, from the US. And this was probably where Rachel/Amanda intended to disappear to once she’d achieved her aim.

  Rachel had assumed Amanda’s identity, including an American passport. The works.

  Jonathan couldn’t quite believe it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Littleworth

  Michael Hemmings had been looking forwards to another visit from Amanda McCarthy in Littleworth, but the tribunal panel had put a stop to all visits until he was safely inside the step-down unit – The Monastery. He thought about her. And Hemmings smiled.

  Amanda McCarthy. Plenty of time to get to know her again, on the outside of this fucking place. He felt restless. This feeling had worsened since his mum had been.

  But she’d said she wasn’t his mum. That this thing had to end once and for all. Margaret Hemmings was his mum. Hemmings knew that. He loved her. He fucking hated her. That was the way it’d always been.

  But she had promised that one day they’d always be together.

  When he was alone and calm he reverted back to the time when Margaret had looked after him; it didn’t seem that long ago. But time for Michael Hemmings was not linear and it was this fragmentation of time that set him on edge, mercilessly playing with his mind, making him agitated. He thought back, unsure if he’d liked what he remembered. The memories were grey, sometimes brown; like his auras.

  Everyone wanted something. His mum wanted something; she wanted to be released from him; that’s what she’d said, and after years of doing the thing that he hated doing for her. And after years of saying that they’d be together one day. But he was getting confused because there were some things he couldn’t remember. Patterson had tried to make him remember – with the auras. Patterson was slowly bringing back the day that had put him in this place. His mum wanted him to forget that day. This place is good for you Michael, she’d said. Without me, getting on with things, no one to distract you.

  She’d left him when he was young and now she wanted to leave him again, saying it was for the best. He tried to believe her. Because she was the only one he could believe. His brain flicked to someone else. The one who didn’t come to see him. He fought to remember her name. Bridget. Fucking Bridget.

  T
oday Michael Hemmings’ world seemed too white. He thought about the sharp knife he kept under his mattress. He could easily end the dark colours, and today he wanted to do so. Today he wanted to die because he knew he was not a good person. And never could be.

  He wanted to see his own white.

  But instead of white he saw dark colours all around. He wanted to be normal. Wanted a house like the one he’d spent his early life in – a clean and tidy home. Margaret, his mother, loving him; before the fucker Rachel had been born. He wiped out Sam, and the other woman: was it Bridget? He couldn’t remember. He hadn’t wanted to be with Sam, or the other woman. He’d put up with a lot to stay with Margaret, stuff he hated, things he fucking hated doing. He still tasted it. Vile.

  The brown enveloped him. Followed by a hint of white.

  And that was the frame of mind he was in when he sat in front of the second tribunal review.

  He couldn’t believe they were letting him out.

  Afterwards Hemmings sought out Toby Abbs. ‘I’m out of here,’ he said to Abbs, his voice low.

  Abbs didn’t look up. ‘Good.’ He feigned disinterest.

  ‘You can come and visit, Toby, they said so, said it would be good for my transition, make sure I’m settling in properly. I’ll miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too.’ Abbs’ head lifted too rapidly, too needily.

  Hemmings felt slightly repulsed but it didn’t last long. He would miss Toby, and not just the sex; he would miss him. If he’d known what it felt like to be vulnerable, he would have said that it was he felt at that moment. Open to attack.

  ‘When?’ Abbs carried on.

  ‘It’s all organised. I think they want to get rid of me. Leave on Friday.’

  ‘Three days? That’s unusual.’

  ‘It is. Have you been in touch with Amanda?’

  ‘No, but I can call her hotel to let her know.’

  Hemmings sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Let her know where to find me, will you?’

  Abbs nodded. ‘Course I will.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  I’d received another letter from Charlotte. Its tone hinted at a festering anxiety and I knew immediately that something, or someone, had caused this worry. She desperately needed to speak to me, she said. Also, that from the States she’d spoken to Jonathan but said no more. I knew there was more.

  Jonathan knew. He knew. But what I didn’t know was how far down the trail he’d travelled. Perhaps I should call Marek? I decided against it. I had no wish to bother him again. Ever again.

  The safest thing I could do was move to a different hotel, one in the centre of Liverpool, so that I’d be nearer to the step-down unit, where Abbs had informed me on the phone the day before, Hemmings was being moved to. The impending removal of Hemmings from Littleworth had happened obscenely quickly.

  With the knowledge that Jonathan was on to something I checked into the hotel under a different name. Picking a cheap bed and breakfast, and using cash, I was able to use any name I wanted. Who would I be? On a whim I chose Julia Roberts and saw Stanley smiling.

  Every instinct told me Jonathan was near to knowing about Amanda.

  ‘You look a bit like Julia Roberts,’ the young woman said to me at the less than salubrious reception desk.

  ‘No one’s mentioned that before,’ I said, with a hint of amusement.

  After checking in I put my bag in the room and went out to find an internet café. Having studied the regulations at The Monastery step-down clinic I knew I definitely needed new identification. They wouldn’t search me but would want to see proof of who I was, and I couldn't be Amanda. It was too risky now.

  This would soon be over.

  I peered at the computer screen, waiting for Razor’s reply. As if smelling my desperation through the ether Razor’s answer came back almost immediately. My new ID would be delivered to the address I’d given him – another PO Box at the main Liverpool post office – within twenty-four hours.

  Then I composed an email to Tom Gillespie’s protected email address, giving him website and email addresses that Razor had given to me regarding the dark web, the trafficking of children and internet paedophilia. This time I didn’t delete or store in drafts. This time I sent it.

  Collecting my things, I made my way back to the B&B.

  —

  The room was small. Much smaller than Mrs Xú’s, and the bed was even more uncomfortable. It didn’t matter. All that mattered now was that accessing Hemmings would be easier. The Monastery was a modern, purpose-built unit; although Abbs had assured me it being modern and new didn’t in any way mean it was any better supervised than Littleworth. He didn’t quite put it like that, but it’s what he meant.

  I told him I’d be visiting under another name: Julia Roberts. Abbs questioned nothing, he wasn’t interested. All he was concerned about was keeping Michael Hemmings happy. And seeing Amanda kept him happy.

  I’d ringed the date I was to visit Hemmings in my diary. I checked the small steak knife that I could easily hide in my sock, knowing I wouldn’t be searched. The blade was serrated and sharp.

  Lying down on the gaudily patterned bedspread, I pushed the one thin pillow underneath my neck and aimlessly watched the clock tick from one minute to the next. I felt myself moving towards the sleep that was often so elusive, and my mind opening up. This time the memory was more real as I allowed myself to be me, and not watch as if someone else from afar.

  It was another seven years before I mentioned the ‘Michael’ incident to my mother. Seven years; the cycles again. We had a day off school – for teacher training – I think. A woman we knew from church was coming round with her new baby. A girl, ten months old.

  We all sat in the kitchen. My mother was baking. Nothing stopped her from doing what she wanted to do. The woman was perched, uncomfortably, on a kitchen stool, holding the rounded and happy baby. She’d been in our house for over an hour, but my mother still hadn’t even touched the bundle of joy. I had, cooing and stroking. I’d taken the baby into the garden, shown her the squirrels, but now we were both back in the kitchen, and its stifling closeness. The woman looked awkward. The baby began to cry, the woman said she needed feeding. She, inconspicuously, opened her top and the baby began to guzzle. My mother hadn’t offered for her to go in the lounge and breastfeed and I think the woman was scared of my mother, so she didn’t ask for privacy.

  By now, my mother had finished making her apple pie. It was in the oven, the homely smell so incongruous with the real atmosphere. The kitchen was baking hot. My mother was now making homemade tomato sauce for spaghetti bolognese. I stood by the sink putting the tomatoes in a bowl, waiting for my mother to pour the boiling water from the kettle over them to loosen the skins. My mother made the same sauce once a week.

  The woman chatted nervously, occasionally moving her baby upwards, underneath her wool sweater.

  I don’t know what made me say it. My mother was waiting patiently for the kettle to finish boiling the water for the tomatoes.

  ‘How old will the baby be when you stop feeding her?’ I asked the woman, still busily plucking the green stalks from the tomatoes.

  ‘Not until she’s about one, maybe eighteen months,’ she replied, happy to chat.

  ‘And then you won’t feed anyone else?’ I asked.

  She looked confused. My mother stood tall. I sensed, rather than saw, every muscle tighten from her neck downwards, her hand still on the kettle handle.

  I carried on, feeling powerful. ‘So you wouldn’t feed anyone else? Only your own baby?’ I felt even braver. ‘And not a grown boy?

  The woman shifted. My left hand was still in the bowl, holding a stalk, the bowl still in the sink. The kettle steamed, whistled. I didn’t see my mother quickly move the one step to the sink. I’d taken my right hand from the bowl to scratch my nose. My mother poured the boiling water over my left hand that still held the stalk. I felt as if I was silent for too long; it was the woman’s screech that activated my
own. A few seconds later the pain consumed me, I looked downwards at my hand, already the skin beginning to blister and loosen, like the skin of the tomatoes.

  My mother stood, watching, doing nothing. The woman was holding her baby close with one arm, and even through the pain I noticed a pink and pretty nipple poking out from underneath her jumper, so different from my mother’s. The woman turned on the cold water and ran it over my hand, shaking and crying.

  My mother said nothing, not even sorry.

  The woman called my dad, who was working locally, and he came home. The woman left, and never came back.

  It was an accident, love, he’d said, but that night, one of very few, I heard Dad arguing with my mother. The incident wasn’t mentioned ever again. I never told anyone what had really happened. That my mother had deliberately poured boiling water over my hand because I’d revealed the odd secret between her and her nephew.

  The pressure on my forehead was light, ethereal.

  I love you, Mum.

  My journey was not what I’d thought it would be and, in the midst of undulating sleep, I recognised there was a reason for everything, and nothing is as random as we tell ourselves it is. Nothing.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  The Monastery, Liverpool

  I sat in a clean new waiting room, focusing on the female receptionist who had instructed me to take a seat.

  Razor had ensured I had a new American driving licence and passport. Abbs still hadn’t mentioned my new identity. It was obvious he was intent on maintaining Hemmings’ happiness, and part of that maintenance was Hemmings seeing me – Amanda McCarthy – a woman who had tales to tell that Hemmings would relish. Sitting in the badly ventilated room I felt relief that Hemmings wanted nothing physical from me; he only wanted Amanda’s horrifying stories of men who thought like him, who were as disturbed as him.

  But I was here for Joe, doing this for Joe, and I tried to scrub away any image of my son with Hemmings. Joe would not want me to see, as I knew deep inside the lining of my soul, he would not want me here, doing this. I have to, Joe. I will make everything right, trust me.