The receptionist interrupted my thoughts. ‘OK, I’m ready now. Would you like to write down your details in the book?’
Tearing my eyes away from the blue-carpeted floor I stood, making my way to the desk, and gave my name to the fresh-faced woman.
Uninterestedly, her eyes roamed my face. ‘American?’
‘Sure am.’
‘Here to see Michael Hemmings?’
I nodded.
‘He’s only been here a few days.’ She looked at some sort of itinerary. ‘He’s settled in nicely. We don’t normally allow visitors so soon after a move, but we’ve spoken to his ex-nurse, Mr Abbs, and it all seems in order.’ She peered at her notes again. ‘Seems Michael is doing everything early, he’s scheduled for his first chaperoned visit outside tomorrow.’ She shuffled a few papers. ‘Mr Abbs will be with him.’
‘That’s mighty nice,’ I said.
She looked up again, ‘Friend, family?’
I faltered only for a second. ‘Friend.’
‘We do need to see identification.’
I handed over my recent delivery. The woman hardly looked at it. I scrutinised her. Did no one do their job properly in these places? Had I done my job as a mother properly? Guilt swallowed me and the urge to pick up my cheap ‘Amanda’ bag and flee the modern unit was so strong I felt myself moving towards the door.
‘He’s in his room, but we prefer, actually we insist, meetings take place in the main lounge area.’ She glanced up. ‘A security person, plain clothes, will be there. Very discreet.’ She looked again at her sheet. ‘Mrs Roberts.’
I gathered myself, barely hearing what the woman said. ‘Thank you.’
I did not leave.
‘We try to make the transition as easy as possible.’ She called an extension number and within three minutes a man appeared. Normal clothes, but obviously security. ‘Carl, can you take Mrs Roberts through to the communal lounge? Michael’s already there.’
Michael Hemmings was standing by the window as I entered the room. The security man took a seat outside the lounge.
‘Hiya, Michael,’ I said, ‘nice place you’ve got yourself here.’
‘It is. It is. Like the new name, it suits you.’ I won’t ask why you have a new name.’ He stopped looking out of the window and looked at me. Not at my forehead. Michael Hemmings looked into my eyes again. ‘Slippery lady, aren’t you?’ He smiled slyly. ‘There’s something about you, Amanda. You remind me of someone.’
‘Do I?’
‘You’re tall.’
I moved closer. ‘All tall in my family. My grandmother was nearly six. Foot, I mean. I tell you, always looked weird in a county full of midgets.’ He moved away from me; I was invading his personal space. I hung back. ‘Mr Abbs said you’d like to see me again, I thought we got on pretty well? I thought I could talk about Stephen a little more.’
‘Stephen?’ He looked confused. His eyes darted around the room, distracted; eventually they settled on my forehead.
‘Passaro – ma boyfriend in Lucasville Penitentiary? I thought you might want to know more about him. Might want to know the details. I have a lot more I wanna tell you.’ I tried not to sound desperate, and was saved by a man coming in asking us if we wanted tea. Hemmings declined, I nodded. The man picked up the industrial teapot and poured me a cup. I nodded a yes when he pointed at the milk jug. He smiled vacantly and left.
‘I don’t remember Stephen,’ he mumbled.
‘We don’t have to talk about anyone, if you don’t want to.’ I panicked at his disinterest. ‘I thought you wanted to know about Stephen, and me? And my husband ... what he did to me ... what I did to him?’
Hemmings ignored my questions and I felt I was losing him; and if I lost him I’d have to leave. I hadn’t prepared properly for today, memories of boiling water and Margaret had distracted me. Warm sweat pooled underneath my armpits.
‘Why are you here?’ he said, looking at the floor, reminding me of a younger Michael in a purple-and-black room.
‘I’m your friend.’
He sat on his haunches, rocking forwards and backwards. ‘It’s strange. The visit with my mum didn’t go very well.’ He caught my eye. ‘She upset me; made me see the white. I’m gonna miss Doc Patterson. Never thought I’d miss the mad fucker. But I will. Like I miss my mum.’
He seemed different. Less in control. Had the move unsettled him? The wig he wore sat too far forwards on his head, making him appear faintly ridiculous. For the first time I admitted to myself that perhaps Hemmings was insane. Amanda seemed to be dipping in and out today and I sensed Hemmings’ suspicion. Acknowledging his insanity took away a large part of my diminishing resolve.
What would Amanda say? She would question him about his mother. Amanda knew nothing about his family. I attempted to appear nonchalant. ‘What’s your mom’s name, Michael? Always nice to have a name.’
He got up from his semi-kneeling position. I could see he was unsure what to say. ‘My mum? Why do you want to know about her?’
‘Well, all I know is my mom was a bad-ass. Left my three sisters and I when we were young. So my dad raised us. If you can say “raise”. He drank too much and, when he drank, he found his daughters too attractive, if you know what ah mean?’
I’d caught his attention. ‘He fucked his daughters? He fucked you?’
‘Not ma younger sisters, but me, yeah.’ I wrestled with being Amanda.
He pulled the wig further back on his skull and I pretended not to notice.
‘That’s bad,’ he said. I waited, he watched; puzzlement crossed his face. ‘My mum, she wants it to finish.’ He rubbed his hands through the false hair. The wig dislodged further.
I was almost mesmerised watching him. The man who I’d spent the last five years thinking about. This man who had killed my beautiful Joe.
Yet all was not as I had wanted it to be. Something felt utterly displaced.
‘What’s your mom’s name?’ I repeated.
He now stood with his back to me, still fiddling with the wig.
Then he turned. ‘Wait here.’
He disappeared from the room, and through the glass of the door I saw him saying something to the security man standing outside. The man nodded and then sat back on his chair, continuing to text on his mobile.
Ten minutes later, Hemmings returned with his guitar. It was the same one from his room that Christmas long ago. Battered and scratched. He said nothing as he sat on the chair. He began to strum. The sound that came was quite beautiful, the music appearing to calm him. After fifteen minutes, he took the guitar from his knee, placing it upright against the chair.
‘Do you play?’ he asked.
I did, but not as well as Hemmings. And I wasn’t sure if Amanda would. I shook my head.
‘I have a cousin who I tried to teach to play guitar, a long time ago.’
I nodded and my skin became both hot and cold; I licked dry and chapped lips.
‘I could teach you,’ he said.
As if it was thirty years ago. ‘I think I’m too old to learn.’
‘I’d like to teach you.’
‘Really, Michael, I’m totally unmusical.’
‘Pick up the guitar.’ He stood. ‘Sit here and put the guitar on your lap.’
Amanda had deserted me. I was alone with Joe’s murderer and was separating out. Sweat poured down the top of my spine. I tried to think of Stanley and why I was playing this part, but as I watched Hemmings everything leaked away. I picked up the guitar and sat on the chair.
‘I thought you were right-handed?’ he said.
‘I am.’
‘You picked the guitar up with your right.’
‘Yeah, because I’m right-handed, Michael. What’s this about?’
‘It’s about nothing.’ He stood rocking, from right foot to left foot. Then, in an exaggerated movement, he took off the wig, revealing the baldness that had followed me through five years of nightmares. ‘Even people who don’t play the guitar,
they always pick the guitar up with its neck, and always with the hand that isn’t dominant. So you should have picked it up with your left. And you didn’t. Which means you’re left-handed. Not right.’ He stared at me, and not at my forehead.
‘I don’t play the guitar. How the fuck do I know how to pick it up? I thought ya wanted to see me, not mess with me. C’mon, Michael, I was looking forwards to telling ya about Stephen, and ma dead husband...’
He stared out the window. ‘Margaret.’
‘Pardon?’
‘That’s my mother’s name. She came to see me and told me she doesn’t want anything to do with me anymore. She told me she isn’t my mother.’
He stared at the floor. And I swam for air.
‘But she is your mother?’ I said finally, and played along.
‘I think so. I get mixed up. I wrote to my dad.’
‘Who’s your father? What’s his name, Michael?’ I lowered my voice.
‘Sam’s my dad.’
‘And Sam is Margaret’s husband?’ I was thinking quickly.
He glanced upwards. ‘No. That’s the thing. The thing I can’t understand. It’s so fucking confusing. But my mum – if I could see her again – would be able to tell me. But they’ve told me I can’t see my mum again. But I need to see her. To talk about something. The colours would go away then.’
He had gone. As he did when I knew him as a teenager.
I attempted to stay. ‘What would your mom be able to tell you?’ The early afternoon sun shone on the tightened shiny skin of his skull.
‘What happened the day I killed Joe.’
I was still sitting in the chair and felt my guts move backwards; the inside of my head pounded as the pulsating tide of blood pummelled through the arteries in my neck, towards my brain. I thought about Joe’s visits. But it was only a dream. Joe was only a dream. I knew that.
‘Joe, the boy – why you’re here?’
‘Joe Dune.’ He watched me, smiled. ‘Rachel Dune’s son.’
You sick bastard.
The horror I felt at hearing Hemmings say Joe’s name overrode the fear that he knew who I was. Yet did he? I felt the edge of the knife that was hidden in my sock.
‘Did you know her?’ I said.
‘Who? Rachel? Yes, she’s my cousin.’ His grin was peculiarly lopsided. ‘She was left-handed.’ He glanced at the mug of tea the tea lady had left earlier. ‘She didn’t like tea.’
I picked up the mug with my right hand, and sipped.
He carried on. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He sat again on his haunches. ‘She came to the flat I was squatting in, the place I’d taken Joe ... while Joe was there. Mum came, Margaret came. I’d wanted to see her, to tell her I missed her. All those years, like a mother. Then she turned up when Joe was there.’ He stopped, watched me, then finished, slowly. ‘She made me do things for her.’
Unwillingly, the picture of my mother and Michael intruded, the nipple in his mouth. I tried not to imagine what other things Michael might be alluding to, yet was not surprised at how easily I conjured up the scene.
He’d said Margaret had been at his squat. How could that be?
‘Are you saying that your mother, Margaret, was there the day you ... killed the boy?’
Please forgive me, Joe.
Michael continued as if recounting something he’d no wish to remember, but doing so for my benefit.
‘She was there, yes. Margaret’d always told me, “If you don’t do this, Michael, I’ll stop looking after you and tell your dad.” I didn’t want them to know, my dad, or my mum. Not really. But I did, a bit.’ He fought himself and ploughed on. ‘You know, Amanda, that’s what’s confusing me. I think I’ve got it wrong. Bridget’s my real mum. Margaret’s not my mum.’ He stopped and hummed a tune for a second, then stopped. ‘Is she?’
I allowed myself to relax. He’d called me Amanda. ‘Hey man, you can tell me anything you want. I’m here. Some shit’s happened to me, Michael, I can tell you. You can tell me anything.’ He seemed placated. ‘Maybe you should see the woman ... Bridget.’
He held his head with both hands. ‘You’re not fucking listening ... I can see the white. It’s everywhere. It was everywhere the day I took Joe. I wasn’t going to hurt him; only getting my own back on the fucker, Rachel Dune, that’s all. Make her sweat. Hated her.’ He grinned at my forehead. ‘Only good thing that came from it all – hurting Rachel. Bridget won’t come to see me, Sam doesn’t give a shit. All I have is Margaret.’
Margaret had become ‘Margaret’ more than ‘mum’. I struggled to be Amanda but tried to think like Rachel. My police training kicked in with a strength I embraced. Michael Hemmings was trying to tell me something. I wasn’t sure if he was telling Amanda, or if he knew it was me, but the fragments were falling together. The sickness inside my body grew with the realisation that what I’d find, would not be as I had thought. Sitting behind the façade of Amanda I was able to disseminate what was happening.
Had Margaret been at Hemmings’ squat the day Joe died?
‘Do you want to tell me?’ I said.
He had both arms wrapped around his head. ‘Do I want to tell you? I wanted to tell Patterson. She came, that day Margaret came, she heard Joe. She went into the room where I was keeping him. I followed her into the room. I thought she’d be mad with me. Thought she’d be angry that I had Joe. She wasn’t that angry. She started to tell me that I shouldn’t go and see her anymore. Then Joe started screaming: I’d tied a scarf around his neck and ankles, only loosely, to hold him down, he didn’t like that. I was going to untie him, let him go home with his gran. Margaret told me to take him home myself, that the police were looking for him. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d been to my squat, so she couldn’t take him, she said. And then Joe’s screaming and she was telling me she didn’t want anything to do with me. I saw the brown then. Before the white. And I told her what she’d done to me – all those years ago. That she couldn’t ask me to do those things and then not want me. And Joe listened from the bed, heard everything.’
‘He was only seven – he wouldn’t understand.’
Oh Joe, something around your neck. I’m so sorry.
Hemmings looked up.
Would Amanda know Joe’s age?
‘I think it’s time you left.’ He picked up the guitar and began to strum.
‘I have to go back to the States next week,’ I said, grasping to change the subject, trying to appear normal, as Amanda would appear, but inside I decomposed.
‘Do you? To see Noah? You should take care of Noah, Amanda.’ He began humming the tune he was strumming. It was a hymn I recognised from Sunday school. Mr Roberts had played the guitar and sang the song in which Michael Hemmings was now losing himself.
What did our Lord and saviour say,
When others wished to drive us away?
Suffer little children to come unto me,
Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven
What did He say whose spirit shed,
Hope to the living, life to the dead?
Suffer little children to come unto me,
Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven
If on His mercy we relay,
What will his words be when we die?
Hemmings looked through me, ‘Suffer little children to come unto me, of such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Joe went to a better place. I want to go, too, but because of Margaret, I don’t think I’ll get in,’ he said.
‘Can I see you before I leave?’ I said. Amanda said.
I hadn’t used the knife, telling myself it was because there was more to learn from Michael Hemmings, and not because I was unable commit murder. I would wait for the right moment.
He snapped away from the mental place he’d been visiting. ‘I have my first trip “outside” tomorrow. I’ll be at the coffee shop on Paradise Street. I like that name, don’t you? Three o’ clock.’
I nodded. ‘Be nice to see you again before I head back to the States. Will you be with
anyone, an escort?’
‘It will be good to see you before you go.’ He appeared more lucid. ‘Yes, I’ll be chaperoned, but not heavily. Abbs will smooth the way. He’ll be there, he knows the “chaps”. There’s a park nearby, you go down the alleyway next to the shop and it brings you onto a park. I’ll get away and meet you there?’
‘Yes, I’ll see you there, Michael.’
He watched me with a faint smile. ‘And you can tell me all about Stephen. His death. What he looked like when he died. I want to know what he said to you, just before. That’s what I really want to know, Amanda. How he felt, knowing he was going to fry.’
A terrible sense of foreboding overshadowed my fading resolve and confidence.
—
The day Joe died was not the day I thought it had been and it was Margaret who dominated my thoughts as I made my way back to the B&B. She had been there, at the squat. She had seen Joe, and done nothing. Could I believe Michael?
It was unthinkable, but so was what she had done to Michael Hemmings.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Jonathan had been busy. Doctor Cohen’s email system had been a tough one to break but he had, eventually. To his delight Cohen liked to transcribe. He detailed everything, unlike Doctor Patterson who tended to be more slapdash in his note-taking and digital filing.
According to a file created by Cohen only a week before, Patterson had, via email, told Cohen that he questioned Michael Hemmings’ sole involvement in the murder of Joe Dune.
From Doctor Patterson:
‘If Hemmings murdered the boy, he should be removed to a Category-A prison ... however, if in fact he was not fully culpable, but had admitted to his guilt due to either insanity or diminished responsibility, then he should remain in an institution such as this and be given the care that a patient who is deemed mentally ill under the 1983 Mental Health Act would expect. My question would be, Doctor Cohen: was Michael Hemmings solely responsible for the death of Joe Dune?’
Cohen’s response:
‘It is too late now to become involved in this, Doctor Patterson. Any pertinent knowledge you had should have been shared. If there is something that has come to light during your sessions with this patient, it should have been documented. It wasn’t. Whatever your conjectures might be, they will now remain just that. Conjectures. Any private feeling you hold regarding Michael Hemmings’ level of guilt in the Joe Dune manslaughter will remain private.’
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