Margot's Secrets

by Don Boyd

Margot looked dumbfounded. “The same school? Where?”

  “In Scotland. And with Mister Inns-Hopkins.”

  “Impossible!”

  “True”

  “Paolo was not taught by my husband.”

  “But he definitely taught at the same school. We have done our research.”

  Carlos shrugged and stood up. Luis pushed a button to turn off his tape recorder, and began to rewind.

  Margot used the toilet as her excuse to be on her own. As she sat in the chrome and porcelain of the cubicle, a couple of women were washing their hands, chatting in Catalan. She sent a text to Archie.

  “Don’t forget dinner tonight. I have a surprise for you. Please ring asap. Love, Me xx.”

  So Archie had known Xavier in Scotland. Was there some reason why he had hidden this from her? Perhaps it had never really arisen. What part of his past did Xavier represent? What did Xavier know about Archie that she didn’t? What did Archie know about Xavier that she didn’t? Was there something about her husband’s past that he had been desperate to keep secret from her? Surely not. She remembered the studies that she had made in Chicago chronicling the perverse private rituals and secret bonds endemic in the British public school ‘old boys networks’ throughout the latter part of the twentieth century. Useful research for her dissertation on child abuses in the Roman Catholic church. Archie’s early life and work certainly overlapped this entire forty-year, post war era.

  She returned to the reception area where Carlos and Luis were waiting for her.

  “Let me enjoy the privilege of showing you around our organisation. We are very proud of it.”

  “I would love that.”

  Margot’s third lie! She was desperate to be alone.

  Carlos picked up a ‘phone and within a minute, a smart officer in a more formal blue uniform, with the familiar Catalonian shield badge and three talons on his shoulder, delineating his rank, marched in, saluted and ushered Carlos and Margot away from the reception area.

  “See you this evening!” was Luis’ parting shot. He was busy replaying the tapes. Margot looked at him, quizzically. She hadn’t until then realised the significance of the supper meeting that evening. This was not the social engagement it had been disguised as, it was going to be a continuation of her interrogation. Carlos was a cunning old fox, and had obviously also asked his colleague, Luis, to join them for dinner. Margot’s need to string out the police investigation enough to find a way to deal with her infidelity now seemed a silly, insignificant ploy. She was going to use the supper as much as the police had intended to.

  Her exhaustive tour of the Mossos D’Esquadros Central ABP, as the headquarters are known in police parlance, included the Criminal Investigation Division and its highly scientific technical facilities, the General Investigation Office with a phalanx of computer screens and young, fashionably dressed investigators behind them, the Central Coordination and Liaison Office, the Regional Control Room which like the outside of the building, looked like a state-of-the-art television newsroom, the Support Office, more serious personnel and their Regional Investigation Area. All of these areas seemed to operate at least as efficiently and calmly as the corporate headquarters of a well-run international conglomerate. Sergeant Diaz was obviously trained to know exactly how to pinpoint the glories of the Mossos organisation. Margot wondered if this display of professional pride was Inspector Carlos Mendoza’s subtle way of letting her know that he was fully aware that she was withholding at least one important fact and that he had the resources to winkle it out by hook or by crook. But this didn’t really solve her problem.

  When the young corporal had completed their tour, Carlos told Margot that he had been asked to show her something, part of the murder investigation, which would probably upset her. They walked down another corridor of strip lighting and chrome fittings, arriving at a laboratory.

  “Have you ever been inside a modern laboratory for post mortem examinations before?”

  Carlos asked her to put a white robe over her clothes, and to wear a mask which covered her nose and mouth. A security card and a voice identity triggered the electronic system, allowing them clearance to enter the chilly, pristine environment. More chrome and glass, and a sweet stench which reminded Margot of the crematorium. Of course – dead bodies. Within seconds, she was looking at Tilly’s naked body.

  At first she felt nothing, uninvolved. This was a new experience and her inquisitive mind wanted to absorb the details objectively, however disturbing. She took refuge by trying to think about what she was seeing from a psychological standpoint. She remembered reading an exhaustive study by a zoologist about the naked female form. Apparently one of Henry VIII’s wives had a third breast. Freud had written about dead bodies. Is this how soldiers feel when they come across their dead friends on the battlefield? But within seconds, this chilling, detached intellectuality disappeared and was replaced by a feeling Margot had experienced only once before, when she had said goodbye to her dying uncle at his funeral. This was the Tilly she had nursed through hours and hours of the painful agony of a young woman whose childhood had been desperately lonely and unhappy. Loveless. Isolated. This was the Tilly whom Margot had loved in the way that mothers love their daughters. She looked around the room, oblivious to the pathologist and her corporal’s attentions. She sat down on the nearest chair she could find and cried without any inhibition. Quietly.

  The corporal brought her a glass of water, which she drank quickly. Carlos was impassive.

  “I want to look at her again.”

  Tilly’s red hair was flaying behind her beautiful face. Her eyes were closed. Millais’ Ophelia, indeed.

  The pathologist came over with a polite simple request.

  “Please, could you look at her arms? We removed the tattoos which were there on both arms after taking photographs of them.”

  Margot realised that she had never seen much of Tilly’s arms, she always wore sleeves, or cardigans. She had never mentioned tattoos, either, for that matter.

  Each arm bore a series of neat scars and several relatively fresh wounds, which had obviously been patched up. Brus, the self-inflicting artist. No, this was evidence of much more than an artistic adventure.

  Margot felt ashamed, remembering Tilly’s long-sleeved black coat on the day she died.

  How could I have missed this obvious evidence of such a revealing and definitive element in Tilly’s disturbed psychological condition? Why didn’t I make this connection? Self-mutilation!

  “I had never noticed these before,” she said, truthfully. “She had told me about this problem in her childhood but she convinced me that she was no longer doing this.”

  “The victim was a ‘cutter’. Is this the term you use in your profession?”

  “Yes.”

  Margot looked more carefully at the unmistakeable evidence on Tilly’s arms. This was beyond the form of self-infliction which had characterised Brus’s artistic experiments, although there were analogies. Margot had come across cutters before. Like anorexics and bulimics they were a phenomenon, which the therapeutic and psychiatric world had initially baulked at, and often refused to treat. Not for the best of reasons. Many therapists at first refused to accept that this perverse behaviour, at least as prevalent in the Western World as familiar compulsive disorders, had roots in same the kind of psychological frameworks with which they struggled, and in some cases were ill-equipped to deal with. They were baffled and refused to treat people who showed them their self-inflicted wounds, their ‘cuts’. They argued that they were evidence of serious mental disorders beyond any form of therapeutic remedies, the product of truly sick minds.

  Margot had met one of the pioneers in this specialised field at a conference at the University Of Texas who had given a comprehensive analysis of the illness. She couldn’t understand why her profession refused to categorise this behaviour as a disorder. She had also explained that self-mutilators often show signs of other, more familiar personality or eating d
isorders like anorexia or bulimia nervosa. They were also usually superstitious, compulsive and finally, most poignant of all, she described cutters as lonely individuals who find it difficult to make lasting attachments. But when they find someone to latch onto, they become compulsive. Paolo, in Tilly’s case.

  How did I miss all this with Tilly? Why did I fail to recognise her symptoms? All those obsessive showers in the studio at the beginning and end of each session? She talked about those endlessly but I didn’t really understand their context. The tattoos? She kept those secret. But of course, cutters are notoriously secret about their habit. And suicidal. Some of those wounds were fresh. Why had she returned to it? Xavier.

  Tilly’s lifeless, naked body had revealed to the police secrets which Margot had failed to discover about her sad life. Secrets which Xavier must have been privy to. Carlos was using every professional weapon at his disposal to apply a very gentle but persuasive professional pressure. He needed to know more of Margot’s secrets. The corporal offered her a lift home, but Margot explained that she would rather walk to her office. Carlos walked her to the gates of the police station on Las Ramblas and then insisted on accompanying her home.

  Out in the street, the Saturday night crowd was out in force. Tourists. A ‘hen night’ of women dressed in British policewoman’s uniforms. Fanatical Barça fans. The policeman joshed with the transvestites on their early evening break. When they arrived in front of her apartment, Carlos hugged her spontaneously. And then, as if embarrassed, proffered his hand, which Margot took affectionately.

  “Thank you.”

  “This girl you saw, your client, was the same age as Luis’s sister.” Carlos, of course, had known how upset she had been by the image of Tilly’s corpse, and he also knew how ruthless he had been in eliminating one of his prime suspects in this way, but Margot was now in the clear, as far as the police were concerned.

  Tilly had become the model client. At first, after she had arrived in Barcelona, she had resented me. She had been very quiet and polite. She had answered my questions economically but she refused to describe her family set-up. I tried hard to persuade her to describe her mother, for instance. She told me a story about the embarrassment she had experienced when her mother had appeared in the room one night, completely naked, dancing seductively for the family. On another occasion, when Tilly had come down to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk when her parents were having a dinner party, she had caught her mother kissing one of the dinner guests. But she had been very quiet about the time she spent away from them, in the scullery with the servants, or in the nursery with her brother. “He drew Viking ships on the blackboard and I would use the coloured chalks to draw the women and children in the villages they burnt down. Mum would rub all that off angrily and replace it with butterfly drawings and Latin.”

  She hadn’t ever bonded with her mother, and barely saw her father. He spent most of his time at his office or playing tennis at his club during the day and retired to his bedroom, separate bedroom, to watch recorded current affairs programmes, and then listen to his tape-recorded books. Her mother supervised their diets and paid fleeting visits at mealtimes, having spent the mornings in bed, and Tilly never really knew what she did during the rest of the day, but remembered how she smelt of perfume and alcohol when she came to kiss them goodnight.

  All this reticence changed when Paolo came into one of the sessions – I had very reluctantly agreed to this and insisted that it was going to be a very special ‘one off ’ exception. I explained that I had to be able to concentrate on each of them individually, but on this occasion, as if Paolo empowered her, she began to open up. She described in detail the story of her childhood rape by the butler, and she explained her feelings about her brother, Hugo. She also went into detail about the bullying she had experienced at school, and as this picture of her bizarre, abusive childhood emerged, I was able to slowly gain more of her trust. In that sense, Paolo’s presence had been an advantage – he had remained totally silent. Why and how did she keep the new burst of cutting from me? And conceal it so effectively? Again, Xavier must have manipulated her into it in the same way that he manipulated Paolo into a ritual which was to lead him to an agonising death. Jouissance!

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Margot rang Archie to tell him that they had been invited to supper with Carlos and Elvira. He seemed a little surprised, but went along with the idea and offered to drive them to their apartment in Tibidado. They agreed to meet at Elvira’s bar.

  Isobel’s cell ‘phone was still switched off.

  It was nearly dark. Deep shadows. She went over to draw the curtains and noticed that the same tall policeman who had been there the night before was positioned across the square, this time in a peaked cap. They all have so many uniforms! She smiled. Carlos was doing his job, looking after her. She poured herself a large glass of malt whisky, listened to her answer phone messages, writing a list as they came off the tape.

  Laura: “Thank you. See you when I get back next week.”

  Hugo: “Lunch? I need you, Margot.”

  Archie: “Where are you?”

  Emma and Eusebio: “We love you.”

  Carlos, cheerful: “Thank you for coming in. I hope you like tapas; I am going to the Boqueria. Catalan wine.”

  A referral from a shrink in London. A long message from her Mom, explaining their plans for the summer.

  “Hello!” from Dad.

  Robert: “Opera and dinner on me next week? Stella is coming in from London on Sunday. I think she is having another affair – I need to come in to see you as usual next week. And I want to talk about Tilly!”

  No name. Caller hangs up.

  No name. Caller hangs up.

  Isobel: “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry… I will call you later on to explain.” She sounded desperate, nervy. She sounded panic-stricken.

  No name. Caller hangs up.

  She couldn’t ask Archie, but perhaps Hugo would know how to contact Isobel’s husband. She left him a message accepting his lunch invitation and asked him to call her.

  She then dialled Marie Christine in France. She was the only person in the world who could help her now. Marie Christine, herself, answered. At long last, Margot could enjoy her comforting voice, and her wise words. She nearly burst out crying at the relief she felt and then tactfully established with her that she was well enough to talk.

  “I need at least an hour of your time on the ‘phone… you are the only person…”

  And with that, Margot told her absolutely everything she could remember with any relevance to the events Barcelona that week. All her secrets. When she finally hung up, two hours later, exhausted and emotionally drained, Marie-Christine had clarified everything to her complete satisfaction. Margot thanked her profusely and promised to visit see her as soon as she could. She now knew exactly what she had to do – she was going to have to tell the police and Archie everything.

  She then left some cash on the desk in an envelope for her cleaner, who came on weekends. She closed the shutters, turned off the light in the consulting room, went to the bathroom to put on some lipstick, and just before she left, clicked the answer–machine to the message system. She walked quickly through the seductive, early evening bustle of the Barri Gotic. Looking over her shoulder, she thought that she noticed the policeman again.

  Archie had already arrived at Elvira’s bar, and was sitting on a bar stool drinking Coca Cola with Elvira. Margot greeted her friend with a kiss.

  “Elvira, I need to talk to Archie alone. Do you mind if we go upstairs for a few minutes?”

  “Please go. I will bring you a drink. What would you like?”

  “I am fine, thank you. We will come down when we’ve done, and then Archie can drive us up to your house. Carlos left me a message – he’s doing tapas!”

  Elvira laughed. “I can close everything down.”

  Margot then led Archie upstairs to the balcony and to the small wooden table next to the washroom
s.

  “Archie, you know that I absolutely adore you, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  She took a sip from his glass of Coke.

  “You are going to learn something tonight which I never wanted you to know. Things about me which I did not know existed. Bad things… And I am so sorry about this. I am so sorry that you have to know this. I thought that I could hide it all, but I can’t.”

  Archie was silent.

  “I have been involved in something this week which I have not been able to understand. It has all been beyond my control. I have gone into psychological territories which are impossible to rationalise. I have behaved badly. Very badly.”

  Archie remained quiet.

  “I am out of my depth. Frightened. Petrified. I desperately need you to understand how important you are for me, and you must promise me that as much as you may be angry about what I am going to tell you or not tell you, or hurt by it, you will try to forgive me.”

  Finally, Archie took her hands. “I have always accepted that we must have secrets. Of course. I have my secrets too. And this week has been bloody for all of us. You have behaved very well under the circumstances.”

  “Archie, these are not normal secrets. And, no, I have not behaved at all well.”

  “Why are you telling me this now, and here?”

  “Because I am going to tell Carlos things tonight at supper which you will hear about for the first time, and they will upset you so much. But Carlos has to know about it. And if he knows, I need you to know. This is different from my work.”

  Archie paused. To have supper with Carlos was odd enough. To have your wife provide a public confessional was extraordinary.

  “Okay. I understand the need to tell Carlos stuff. Frankly, I would have thought that he would want you to do this formally, at the police station, or wherever he does these things. But you don’t have to tell me anything I don’t need to know. I would rather that you kept anything really grisly to yourself. You know how much I trust you.”