Falling Suns

by J. A. Corrigan

  ‘I’ve told the two chaperones to stay in the shop,’ Tom replied. ‘Any movement from them and I’ll have them both arrested, which I will anyway, one way or the other. Abbs here,’ it was Gillespie’s turn to grip Toby Abbs’ arm, ‘says that Hemmings has gone to the park.’ He pointed up the adjacent alleyway. ‘To play on the swings, eh, Abbs?’

  ‘No. I’ve told you, he’s meeting Amanda there,’ Abbs said, peering at Tom. ‘I haven’t said anything about talking to you, Mr Gillespie.’

  Tears filled the hospital worker’s eyes.

  Toby carried on, ‘I’ve been accommodating ...’ He directed the remark to Gillespie and Leatherby, but it was Jonathan who replied.

  ‘I’d be careful with the “accommodating” Toby.’

  ‘You’re the reporter who came to visit me ... I remember you,’ Abbs said pleadingly to Jonathan. ‘Listen, tell them,’ a furtive glance at Tom and Leatherby, ‘tell them I helped you ...’ Then Abbs seemed to compose himself. ‘Michael Hemmings isn’t what you think he is.’

  ‘What you getting at, Abbs?’ Tom probed.

  ‘He’s told me something about the day of Joe Dune’s murder.’

  Tom rolled his eyes upwards towards a charcoal sky. ‘And that would be that he didn’t kill Joe Dune, would it? Talk to me later, Abbs,’ Tom turned, already focused on something else. ‘How long have they been gone?’

  ‘I think she was already in the park. Hemmings left about half an hour ago,’ Abbs said.

  ‘Come on,’ Tom said to Jonathan and Leatherby. And speaking to Abbs, ‘You go and wait with the chaperones. A couple of PCs will be here soon. Don’t fucking move.’

  Abbs nodded, wiping away the tears that flooded his reddened face.

  Jonathan caught Tom’s arm. ‘Is it definitely confirmed about Sam?’

  Again, Tom rolled his eyes upwards. ‘Oh, yes. He confessed.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘We’ll talk later. Let’s get on with the task in hand. And hope to God Rachel hasn’t achieved her aim. Because it’s looking as if she may have the wrong person.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  I walked for hours trying to make sense of what Michael Hemmings had told me about Margaret being at the squat. Had he meant Margaret or Bridget? Was he lying about what Margaret had done to him? Surely this was just a symptom of his insanity and delusions. But it was true that Margaret had abused him; this I did know. The flashbacks I’d been experiencing were becoming stronger. If he was telling the truth about that perhaps he was also telling the truth about Margaret at the squat.

  Finally I finished treading the streets, stopping at the post office to pick up any mail. I expected something from Charlotte, who now seemed my only anchor to real life. Two letters awaited me: one from Charlotte, one from Marek.

  I didn’t expect to come away from my meeting with Hemmings, but if I did I planned to leave the country and never return, never to be Rachel again. I should have cut away from Charlotte as I had with Liam. And I shouldn’t have opened myself up to the feelings I’d always had for Jonathan; it had only complicated things. In that moment I thought of texting him, giving up on everything that I’d painstakingly planned; and I might have done if I’d had a mobile to hand.

  When had I stopped loving Liam? I didn’t think it was when I knew he was having an affair. I cared about that because I still loved him then. It was after Joe I shut down. During the months following Joe’s funeral, and after the court case, Liam was not the person I’d thought he should be. There was something more than Joe’s death that separated us, more than his having an affair. Whatever it was, it was what had drawn Liam to Buddhism.

  Standing at the surprisingly clean window of the B&B, I opened Marek’s letter first. Shadows from the metal security bars sliced the early spring light, which fell across the paper in thin strips.

  My dear Rachel,

  As you have perhaps known all along, I have always understood your plan. I pretended to you, and myself, that I did not. But of course I did. I wanted to ease your pain, because I understood that pain. There is a part of you, Rachel, that mirrors a part inside myself. A need to correct things.

  I thought about Sorojini Jain and how, when treating the poor, lovely girl, I wanted to do the same to the man who had disfigured her beautiful face. I know you felt the same. We both want retribution, it is the type of people we are. You want it for Joe; we both wanted it for the bride. We are both wrong.

  Jonathan has worked out your plans, and I think for all the right reasons. I know he cares for you. I wanted to help you in whatever way I could, but Rachel, you can’t do what you plan to do. I plan to speak with Liam, finally. It is something I should have done months ago.

  I suspect you’ll not contact me, but if you do I won’t be at the clinic, I’ve closed it for a while. I’ll be in Gdańsk.

  Love, as always,

  Marek

  His contact address was at the bottom of the paper. Malina’s address. Marek was with her and Kacper, and this warmed me. They were together. I should never have asked him to get involved in this. I had known and understood Marek’s darker borders, and it was a side to him that had tipped him into doing what I’d asked. I looked at the letter one more time and then crumpled it in cold hands.

  I opened Charlotte’s.

  Hi Rachel,

  Need to speak with you. Really important.

  Charl

  No kisses, no love. A current ran through my body.

  —

  It was time to prepare myself for my last meeting with Michael Hemmings. I put on the clothes I’d worn the day before, put the knife in my coat pocket and left my room.

  The day was cool and sparse; fat droplets of rain were splattering the pavement. It took me half an hour to reach the place I’d highlighted on my street map. I stood across the road from the coffee shop, allowing the rain to hit my face, making me feel alive. I had no idea if I still would be at the end of this day. And I didn’t care. I looked forwards to meeting my son again.

  Would Hemmings already be inside, sipping an expensive latte, eating overpriced coffee shop muffins? Joe’s treat every Friday after school had been the double chocolate cake from the coffee shop. We always shared it: half each. My body constricted. I’d attempted to turn grief into fury but my anger was leaving; like fading steam.

  I saw Toby Abbs first: his skinny frame could have done with a few muffins. I wanted to dislike him but could not, instead feeling an unprecedented sorrow for him, and men like him, for whom the delineation of right and wrong, good and bad, became fudged. A saying of Tom Gillespie’s came into my head: you should keep in mind the disunity of people’s minds ... When someone does something terrible, even contemplates it, you and I, Rachel, should be aware that something worse has happened to them. I wondered what had happened to Abbs.

  And Michael Hemmings. Terrible things had happened to him.

  I sank back into the doorway. Should I walk away? I watched a nervous Abbs glance furtively around the full street, check his watch, and then bump into a middle-aged, well-dressed woman who was leaving. He didn’t say sorry and the woman made her way through the afternoon shoppers, her umbrella shot forwards, and I could only guess at the polite profanities that fell from her bright red lips.

  I waited. Ten minutes later Hemmings, wearing a blue denim shirt, together with two other men, his chaperones, I guessed, came into view. I watched them walk through the rain towards the coffee shop entrance. Today he had no wig and looked drawn, worried, and this threw me momentarily. I focused my mind on his physical presence. He was alive when Joe was not. This man had mutilated Joe and, with this memory, I gathered myself and channelled Amanda. I needed her today. I could not waver now.

  Why did Michael Hemmings want Amanda here today? After all the months of planning and physical discomfort, the fear I was now feeling was fierce and unwanted. I watched him go inside and, through the window, saw Toby Abbs get up from the table where he’d been nervously sitting and s
hake Hemmings’ hand.

  I crossed the road, walked straight past the coffee shop door and found the alleyway Hemmings had told me about. I followed it to the end and saw the park with its primary-coloured swings, slides and climbing frames. The playground was empty on such a wet day. In one corner was a bright red plastic treehouse with an outline of a child on the top of the ladder that led to the inside. My heartbeat faltered.

  Beginning to jog, a few moments later I was opening the heavily sprung gate with cold hands. The pad of my thumb caught on the metal and, swearing, I watched as blood squeezed from the wound. I pushed the gate open; all the time watching the figure in the treehouse entrance. My aching legs took me nearer and I recognised the figure of the child. The clothes. The questioning face. The petrol blue.

  I was now standing a few metres away from the soft ‘safety’ surface of the kids’ playground. The figure moved from the shadow of the treehouse door and seeing my son’s features so clearly took away all pain from my body; all the anguish from my mind.

  ‘Joe!’

  He smiled, looking as he did on the day he’d returned from school clutching the ‘sunsets’ picture. The ‘simmering sunsets’ as Liam had called them, proud his son displayed artistic talent like him.

  Joe did not move, but his image paled, only leaving the petrol blue outline of his jumper in the same way the Cheshire Cat left its grin. But I still caught his open and questioning expression, and saw him shake his head in the way he did when I was about to do something he disapproved of – pouring too much wine in a glass at the weekend, or swearing at the cars that cut me up at a particular roundabout. Because that is what children do: see a parent’s faults and impatience every day, knowing you better than anyone in the world, seeing you in all situations, watching, recognising and sometimes copying. Children are your conscience. But they do not postulate and rarely pass a rigid, adult judgement. Today, as I’d felt for months, I sensed Joe’s disapproval.

  The gnawing feeling that I shouldn’t be here would not leave me.

  I wanted someone to stop me. Joe wanted someone to stop me.

  ‘Hey, you!’

  I turned, feeling my stomach lurch. There was blue. But not Joe’s jumper. Denim – the colour of Hemmings’ shirt.

  He was alone. How had he managed to escape his chaperones? Toby Abbs must have helped him, as Hemmings knew he would. Rain slid from his shiny skull. Instinctively, I felt for the knife and when I looked up Hemmings was standing next to me.

  ‘I saw you across the street from inside the coffee shop,’ he said. His arms hung flaccidly by his sides.

  ‘I thought I’d make my way straight to the park,’ I said, recovering a little of Amanda.

  ‘It’s pissing it down. You should have come in. Had a coffee ... maybe a cup of tea?’

  I ignored the reference to tea. ‘I saw Toby. It’s nice he’s visiting you. Don’t your ... chaperones mind?’ I was trying too hard to recapture Amanda’s accent. It, and she, had deserted me.

  ‘They said it was fine. Toby knows you’re here – I told him. He didn’t see you cowering across the road.’ He looked at me, hard. ‘I see everything, though.’ His scrutiny made me more anxious. ‘Abbs told the chaps I’m safe. Abbs thinks we’ll be talking dirty about your dead old man and your dead lover. He raked his hand across his skull, perhaps forgetting there was no wig. ‘I think my new psych knows the truth, Amanda. And look,’ he prodded at his chest, ‘here I am. In a nice park.’ He glanced around the empty playground. ‘Shame there’s no kids, don’t you think?’ My head thumped and I wanted to look to see if Joe had returned to the treehouse; Hemmings saw the fractional turn of my head. ‘Is someone here? I heard you shouting, and it wasn’t Noah you were calling. There’d be no point, he’s in America. Who were you talking to?’

  ‘I thought I saw a child in the treehouse.’

  ‘No kids here.’

  Now he stood close and, despite the freshness of the rain, the smell of old oaks and birches blown through the air by the strong wind, I smelt the odour of a man I wanted to see dead. I sat down on the bench, put my hand in my pocket, and felt the knife handle.

  I didn’t want to speak to him; I didn’t want to look at him, or smell him. I wanted him to move, attack me, so I could do something. So I could hurt him and punish him for what he’d taken away from me: how he had taken away my life, as well as Joe’s.

  ‘Apparently not,’ I said finally.

  He watched me, still standing. ‘You saw Joe, didn’t you?’

  I looked towards the treehouse and then sprung from the soaking wooden bench, ready to kill the man standing in front of me, but my knife was still inside my pocket.

  ‘Joe’s dead,’ I murmured. I knew I could not kill him.

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to do it?’ He waited. ‘Rachel?’

  Hemmings hadn’t moved at all. It didn’t surprise me that he knew who I was. I think he’d always known. Everything about today was wrong.

  Hemmings pulled his own blade out of a trouser pocket.

  I’d waited too long and now there was no time to retrieve my own weapon. Hemmings moved, holding out his right arm with the knife gripped tightly in his hand.

  ‘You’ll be much more effective if you use your left hand to attack me, Rachel.’

  He stood with both arms outstretched, looking like a preacher welcoming his congregation.

  ‘Rachel, sweet Rachel, I often think of you. What have you done to yourself? This is very bad. I liked you the way you were.’ His gaze dropped to my left hand. ‘You thought of everything. She didn’t mean to hurt you with the boiling water, she told me that. But I think she liked me much more than she liked you, Rachel. I think she regretted you. What does it feel like to be a regret?’

  I wanted my son’s murderer dead.

  ‘Why, Michael? What was the point? Why did you kill Joe? Tell me, if nothing else, tell me why?’

  ‘I don’t like your hair ...’ He rubbed the baldness of his head. ‘Do you remember, do you remember when I had hair? All that time ago. I wonder sometimes if it was my mum, if it was her who made it go.’

  Despite myself, I answered. ‘What has Bridget got to do with this?’

  ‘Bridget?’

  ‘Who is your mother,’ I said.

  Slowly he looked at my face and I saw a lucidity his eyes that I’d rarely witnessed. ‘Margaret,’ he said.

  ‘She’s my mother, but she isn’t yours, Michael.’

  He was insane. But it didn’t matter, sane or not, he’d taken my son – for no reason – or none that he would give. The bastard was playing games with me now.

  Hemmings was talking. ‘Sweet, Rachel. Do you still not remember?’

  The park seemed to spin.

  ‘My mother and you...’

  ‘And you think I’m sick, don’t you, Rachel? You poor cow. You always knew what was going on, didn’t you?’

  The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing. The image of Michael sucking Margaret’s breast was clear in my mind, and the sense of Margaret’s pleasure. I realised I was holding my breath. Knowing he could kill me, knowing I could not take a life, I felt no fear.

  ‘Amanda’s boyfriend would have loved my story,’ Hemmings said.

  The mention of Amanda threw me. She was gone. Hopefully to the same place as Joe was going.

  He carried on, ‘Mum ... Margaret would lie on the bed and pull up her long skirt, she’d peel down the big pants. I said no, I screamed. She’d push my head down there and make me lick. Make me lick her cunt, sweet Rachel. At first she’d come quickly, but then it would take her longer and longer and I had to do it for longer and longer.’ He stared at me. ‘And you knew.’

  Words came nowhere near to my lips. I did not know, not that.

  ‘When I was very young ...’ he continued hoarsely.

  I found my voice but even to me it sounded distant and alien. ‘How old were you when this happened?’

  Hemmings’ face contorted. ‘She threat
ened to cut off my cock if I told anyone. Cut it off and stuff it down my throat...’

  Feeling the bile rising I had to turn away from him.

  Joe.

  Quickly, I pivoted a half circle and faced him. Hemmings was nearer to me, the knife held high. Liam had kept from me, for as long as possible, what had been done to Joe’s body. But I knew. The same thing that Margaret had threatened to inflict on Michael if he told.

  ‘Fuck you! Fuck you! He was a baby. My baby,’ I croaked. ‘Joe did nothing to you.’ The thought of Joe’s pain eradicated everything.

  Finally I got my hand on the knife in my pocket, but Hemmings was much quicker than me. He grabbed me by the waist, wrenching me towards his body, and turned me around so I had my back to him. At the same time, violently, and with one hand only, he pulled the knife from me, throwing it out of reach, over the perimeter fence and into the kids’ playground.

  I couldn’t move as he positioned his knife at my throat. I couldn’t even struggle, but then he seemed to calm, his breaths becoming less rapid. But the knife stayed in its place.

  ‘The last few years I’ve been trying to find the answer ... sweet Rachel.’ I felt his breath on my cheek; bitter and rotten. ‘I think Patterson was nearly there. Then they moved me. Stupid thing to do to let me out. Fucking stupid.’

  Tiredness swept over me. My body ached and I wanted him to get this thing over.

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. You murdered my son,’ I said, feeling the sharp edge of metal as my throat moved.

  ‘I didn’t kill Joe. He was here, today, wasn’t he? I could feel it. I saw his aura. So yellow.’

  ‘Stop doing this. You killed my son,’ I whispered, my mouth dry.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t hurt him. I wasn’t bad with him. I wasn’t, Rachel. Not like Margaret was with me ... She was there, Rachel...’

  I tried so hard to think of some plan and focus my mind.

  ‘I found him on the field,’ he said. ‘He told me about Liam and the woman. Naughty Liam.’