Deception aka Sanctum

by Denise Mina

  * * *

  I’ve got to hang on to Susie, my own Susie. The images from her arrest and the court are so overpowering that I have to strain to remember her from before, when we were just two private people, before we became a byword for privileged suburban professionals lusting after a bit of rough.

  I’ve been looking at photos all day, thinking about when we met. I was the only guy in our crowd in med school who married another doctor. All my pals, Rosso and Bangor and Morris, they all said it was a bad move, marrying someone like Susie. They didn’t mention Susie, of course; they just said someone who wasn’t a nurse.

  Susie Wilkens was in the year above us, and her grades were legendary. She was determined to do psychiatry from the beginning. Not surgery, not the high-prestige technical stuff. She was so good she wasn’t even competing with the rest of us. I thought she was marvelous.

  I’ve brought up some photos from our student days to stick on the walls here, to remind me of my Susie. I should put them into an album and leave it around the house so that Margie can see her mummy in normal situations.

  Three of the pictures seem especially significant to me:

  Photo One

  Susie in our crowd from the student union. She is small, five feet four in heels. Her dark, thick hair is long and pulled over one shoulder.

  It was one night among many in the beer bar, special only because I’d bought a disposable camera to take pictures of my room in the medical residence to send Mum and Dad so they could see where I was living and agree to the high rent. The rent wasn’t high at all, but they’d been in Spain for a year and were used to nothing costing more than a tenner. I used the end of the film on the beer bar pictures.

  There is a lot of movement in the picture. Everyone is mugging furiously, shoving each other around and drinking pints of lager, the amber and froth sloshing up the sides of the glasses. Susie is in the middle of it all. She’s making a silly face, sticking out her tongue slightly and crossing her eyes, as if making ugly faces is something she finds terribly hard. She is holding a bag of crisps: cheesy puff balls.

  Photo Two

  Susie and I in the sunshine, outside a church. It was a student wedding; one of the guys from the union got married suddenly because his girlfriend was pregnant. The marriage was over before we graduated.

  Neither Susie nor I could afford good clothes at the time of this picture. She is dressed with studied abandon in a shocking-pink pencil skirt and black dinner jacket. She thought it was studenty to dress like that. I loved it, loved it when she got things so wrong. She was so rarely wrong.

  I have my cheap gray suit on, shiny around the pockets and crumpled at the elbows. I didn’t have the money to dry-clean it. I wore that suit for about four years without having it cleaned or pressed. I remember the semicircular creases on the back of the jacket, like tidal sand. I wore it to christenings, weddings, interviews. In the end it was unwearably smelly and I had to throw it away. This photograph is probably the last time my hair was nice this length, quite Paul Weller, and that was six years ago.

  Susie is much more attractive than I am. Her dark hair was long then, rich and shiny because she was young, worn over her shoulders, falling halfway down her upper arms. Her velvet blue eyes flash. She leans into the camera, saying something and pouting as she finishes a word. I notice my arm around her waist is holding her up: she can bend over at an acute angle because I am holding her weight.

  Photo Three

  Susie is sitting on my knee. We are on vacation with friends, eating dinner in a Corfu restaurant with white plastic chairs and a blue oilcloth on the table. It is nighttime, in an open-air taverna. Twelve shiny, sunburned faces grin around the table. It was our last year of med school, and we all went on a cheap package tour together. They were my friends. Susie came everywhere with my friends. This strikes me as significant somehow. She didn’t seem to have a crowd of her own, or if she did, we don’t have photographs of them.

  I’m very involved with her in the photograph. I’m smelling her hair and my hand is on her slim, brown thigh, my index finger disappearing up the outside leg of her high-cut shorts. I remember how completely wrapped up in each other we were. We kissed in public and touched each other, behavior I find appalling when I witness it now. But then, in the very early days, nothing seemed real or important but that we were together.

  * * *

  It wasn’t all blindness. Susie’s wrong about that. I did know she had flaws, and I didn’t fall in love just because I projected things onto her, either. She had qualities that I had never even thought of before I met her.

  She had a sharp analytical mind, could tease the essence from a phrase or picture, see grades of meaning in statements. I’m just not that bright or interested in dissection. She’d think of a joke and laugh uncontrollably before she told it. She wouldn’t ever give an inch over the house cleaning and always made me do my share before we found Mrs. Anthrobus. I loved the fact that she had principles and was so self-contained. Those weren’t qualities I went out looking for. They blew me away. It wasn’t blindness at all.

  * * *

  Margie’s sleeping through the night and seems to be adjusting finally. I wish I’d paid more attention to her before the verdict, but I was sure Susie would be coming back with me that night. We should have introduced the possibility that Mummy might not come home. I think she knows how bad it is. When she says “Mummy,” she immediately looks at me and Yeni, waiting for whatever reaction we’ve unknowingly been giving. She’s more clingy than she used to be. Still, she asks for Anna, her little friend from nursery, more often than she asks for Susie.

  I know I should take Margie back to nursery as soon as possible, but I’m dreading it. They’ll have read the verdict in the papers. I told Mrs. McLaughlin that I wouldn’t see her for a while because Susie would be dropping Margie off for the next few weeks. I’ll look like an idiot.

  If the other parents snub me, I’ll feel terrible, and if they’re nice, I’ll feel even worse. I’d like to move Margie into a different nursery and never see any of them again, but she likes it there and has made friends.

  I wish I could sleep.

  chapter eight

  FOUND A CONTACTS DATABASE ON THE COMPUTER, AND WHEN I typedin “T,” I found this: Harvey Tucker, 191 Orca Road, Cambuslang.

  * * *

  Susie’s comment on the tape, about how love is a mistake, wasn’t directed at me. She could just have been pissed and showing off to the journalist, flirting with him, letting him think she was available. She’s entitled to a bit of private head space, allowed to talk to people without me there. That’s all she was doing. In some ways it speaks well of our relationship. I want her to feel autonomous. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

  She managed to call me this morning, a full seven days after the verdict. The phone rang while I was standing in the hall eating hot garlic bread (all that’s left in the freezer). If I’d been in the living room, I could have used the cordless and gone off somewhere private, but Susie said that she couldn’t talk for long anyway. She’s been given a job in the laundry, Monday is their heaviest day, and it doesn’t pay well.

  “I’ll need to phone Fitzgerald a lot in the next few weeks, and I should keep as much of the phonecard as I can.”

  Why would she need to talk to Fitzgerald a lot? I thought the sentencing hearing was straightforward. Perhaps they’ve thought of something for the appeal, but I didn’t think to ask that until after she’d rung off.

  “Susie, it’s great to hear your voice.” I kept saying her name to remind myself that she wasn’t dead, that she’d just gone away for a while. It was difficult to hear what she was saying. A woman was shouting in a singsong voice in the background. Another woman told her to shut up or move away from the phone area, and the singer let rip a string of expletives.

  “But, Susie, Fitzgerald can phone you, can’t he?”

  “No.” Her voice sounded distant, as if she were looking away from the phone, b
ack at the shouting woman. “Well, I don’t know all the rules yet. Maybe that’s right.” Then, in a quietly muttered aside: “Shut her up, will you?”

  “You can reverse the charges to here, as well, you know.”

  “I think we’ve spent quite enough money already, don’t you?” she said flatly. “Anyway, we’ve got to buy our phonecards out of the wages they give us.”

  “Can’t I send you some?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because otherwise the rich prisoners would get a lot more talk time than the poor ones, and that wouldn’t be fair.” She sounded scornful. I couldn’t tell if she was being sardonic about the system, the rules, or my stupidity in not instinctively knowing the rules about convicted prisoners’ phone calls.

  “I’ve booked you visits on next Friday at three and the following Wednesday at eleven,” she said. “Bring cigarettes and a transistor radio and a big PP9 battery for it.”

  “Okay.” I jotted the items down on the phone pad. “Did you get my letter?”

  “No.” She sounded suspicious. “Why? What does it say?”

  “Nothing special, just, you know, hello. You didn’t get it?”

  “I got one. Did you send two?”

  “No. How often can I visit you?”

  “Four hours a month. Four visits really.”

  “Oh,” I said, hiding my disappointment. “At least that’s one a week.” It didn’t seem very much at all.

  “Yeah. We could have one or two big ones instead, but I’d rather the one-hour ones. Gives me more to look forward to.”

  I was briefly resentful at the forty-minute drive each way but pleased that I would be the high point of her week.

  “How are you, Susie?” I said. “I miss you.” I had the phone pressed to my ear, my chin to my chest, and was talking quietly, privately, when suddenly a shriek on the other end made my eyes water. I dropped the receiver. It was swinging by the leg of the phone table, but I could still hear the noise of a scuffle and Susie demanding that I answer her.

  “It’s frightening in here,” she said quickly. “There’s a lot of disruptive people.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, shifting the phone to the other, non-bleeding ear. “We’ll get you out of there, just hang on, Susie.” I felt quite manly saying that.

  “Is Margie there?”

  “Well, no. She’s just gone to the park with Yeni. I’m sorry.”

  She sighed heavily, sounding like a blustery wind in the earpiece. “I wanted to talk to her,” she said, near to tears.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d phone today, I’m sorry.”

  Neither of us talked for a moment. We just listened to one another breathe.

  “Is she okay?” she asked.

  “She’s fine,” I said. “Really fine. She’s been talking more.”

  “Has she?” I heard a hopeful lift in her voice. “What’s she saying?”

  “Yesterday she said ‘Teddy’ and ‘sleepy’ and ‘Yeni.’ ”

  I should have known. I should have thought it through before and known how upsetting that would be, but I hadn’t planned the conversation that way at all. Susie howled. She howled from the depths of her ruined soul.

  “Don’t bring her,” she bubbled when she could finally speak. “Don’t bring her to see me.”

  And she hung up.

  I tried phoning back, but you can’t call in to the number because it’s a pay phone. I desperately wanted to comfort her, offer to let Yeni go, anything. I’ve been carrying the phone around with me in the hope that she’d call me back, but she hasn’t. I’ve had an emotional hangover all day.

  Other telephone news: Mum and Dad phoned from Marbella this evening while I was tidying up. Mum said not to worry, the papers seem to have dropped the story. So that’s all right then. They invited me out for an extended visit, and by all means, feel free to bring Margie. She’s not even two yet. I can’t leave her alone in the bath. The card they sent for her first birthday had a Monet print on it and a tenner inside. They might as well have sent her duty-free cigarettes.

  * * *

  I drove into town to see Fitzgerald this morning. I always expect his office to be near other lawyers, or next to the courts, or somewhere more atmospheric than an office block with a charity clothes shop next to the entrance. I took in my notes of points to query for Susie’s appeal. He didn’t seem all that interested in getting my input. He frowned as I spoke, drawing his gray eyebrows down over his eyes like duvets. I felt like a deluded idiot who’d been wasting my own time and was now intent on wasting his. I was reluctant to leave the Dictaphone tape with him in case it got lost, because he didn’t seem very concerned at all. I explained what it said anyway.

  He sat me down and told me that the reports were being done on Susie. They were due to have the sentencing hearing in a few weeks, but of course I must understand that murder always meant life. He was a lot less friendly than he has been, for reasons that I can’t fathom. I’m touchy, I know I am, but it makes me feel suspicious, and I wondered briefly whether he threw the case. It’s stupid. He did very well, even the papers said he did well. I must come up with better things for him to base an appeal on. I need to work harder.

  When I came home, I wrote a long letter to Susie, an encouraging letter, telling her that I’d had a good meeting with Fitzgerald. I finished it and got halfway through dialing Harvey Tucker’s number, but I hung up. He’s not going to phone me back. Even if he did, I don’t know whether I could stand to ask him about Susie. What if he tells me all the things I don’t want to hear? There’s just the faintest possibility, but it niggles me. If I’m going to find any grounds for appeal, I have to approach this with an open mind. It doesn’t really matter what I feel about Susie spending time with Gow. If she did, well then she did, but I need to know so we can answer those points in an appeal. I have to put my own feelings aside. I’m determined to make a contribution to her appeal; I want to help.

  Box 1 Document 2 Notes from Susie’s Trial

  Police Constable McCallum, who gave this evidence, was very young and seemed scared of the court. He gave a lot of details that I thought irrelevant. He was then quizzed about the details by both sides. This is word for word as I took it down:

  PC: Mr. Gow’s body was found in the abandoned bothy above Inshore Loch.

  Prosecution asked for a definition of “bothy.” PC said it was a “single-room dwelling on hills, used by walkers for shelter.” Judge snickery because the lawyer didn’t know what a bothy was.

  PC: Approach to bothy over a mile from road. Well-worn path, familiar to hikers. Out of season, no one there. Police alerted by anonymous caller. Never discovered identity, but call came from a public phone booth that would only be known to a local. Bothy facing north on loch side. Windows broken, no door. Roof collapsed in on west side. Bothy itself: very dark on entry. [PC shaking.] Victim lying on side, facing back wall. Could see hands tied tightly behind back with plastic tag.

  Prosecution asked why “tightly”?

  PC: Hands very, very swollen.

  How swollen?

  PC: Hands about double size and purple. Thought they were gloves at first. Plastic digging deep into skin; wrists bloody. Victim missing one shoe, never found. Stepping to left, PC noticed Gow’s injuries. A lot of blood on the floor and under his head. Mouth obscured by blood. No, sir…

  I think he was questioned by someone here. My writing goes all wonky, as if I’m not sure I should bother taking it down.

  PC: I couldn’t see. It was very dark… Yes, sir, I use a flashlight. Even then, it was still v. dark. Couldn’t see a weapon at this stage [I think this is what I’m writing here.] And the tongue…

  Oh, God, the tongue. The dreaded tongue.

  PC: had been…

  He gulped here, I remember. Everyone leaned forward to catch what he was going to say. Even the impassive stenographer tipped one degree toward him. The blood drained from the PC’s face as he said it.
<
br />   PC: removed.

  Everyone in the public galleries recoiled and gasped. The mustardy old man who was sitting in front of me clapped his hands to his face, as though they were coming after his tongue next, and a couple of old women in front of me held on to each other. Who were these ridiculous people? It really must be the height of cant to wait for a place in the public gallery at a murder trial and then act surprised when violence is mentioned. Why go to so much trouble to hear the details and then get indignant the very moment their prurience is satisfied?

  Susie did herself no favors by turning around and tutting at them. The papers said she was callous, but she’s a medic: she was having bits thrown at her when she was in her teens.

  The only genuine response came from Stevie Ray, who sobbed loudly. Everyone knew he was Gow’s manager; he’d been on any TV show that offered pocket change. He’s effectively unemployed now that his only client is dead, but there was no sympathy for him in the gallery. Everyone just looked away and left him crying like a bullied boy in a playground.

  PC: Clean removal from the root, not gouged.

  How would he know?

  PC: Tongue later found in corner of room. Sitting on newspaper. Lot of blood from mouth on floor. Face clean on upper cheek, suggesting not moved since tongue cut. Deep wound on underside of head, probably initial wound. Checked for pulse.

  F’sake! Half his head f’ing missing!

  PC: Found victim was dead.

  No!

  PC: For ten minutes searched front and back of bothy for other persons. No one there. Called for backup.

  From the crime-scene photos and the aerial photograph in the paper, it was clear that the bothy was a single room with one doorway, sitting on a continuous slope. There was nowhere to hide. The PC could have searched the whole area by stepping outside and turning his head left and right, but neither lawyer asked about the missing ten minutes. I think they assumed he was out the back being sick. Maybe we could make something of this? He could have been contaminating the evidence in some way.