Lily Poole

by Jack O'Donnell

  He followed behind them through the house. Auntie Caroline was a more substantial presence, guiding them in an unfamiliar, faltering tone, answered questions as best she could. One question, from the taller of the two ambulance men, threw her, ‘How long has she been like this?’

  ‘Her whole life.’ John spoke with conviction trying to contain his growing sense of panic. ‘She’s been like that her whole life. She’s my mum. You can save her, can’t you?’

  The bed sheets hauled to the bottom of the bed were redundant. His mum looked smaller, her nightie riding up her legs and her face a bluish colour as they checked for a pulse at her neck and wrist. ‘It’s no good,’ said the fat medic to his companion. ‘She’s cold, been gone a good while.’

  The stretcher was a companion beside her. Mary’s body was eased across, rolled over the lip, parcelled up and disappeared out of the door. Then sirens and flashing lights; unholy silence and darkness.

  Day 60

  The front door banged at an ungodly hour. No watch, no alarm clock, to tell him the time, John mashed gummy sleep from the corners of his eyes with his knuckles. Dropping off to sleep had not been easy. Too many thoughts warred in his head, too much reality leaving him stranded in a fecund field of what ifs?. What if he had been nicer to his mum, more patient, more kind, paid her more attention? What if he had known? What could he have done? He stumbled, cold-footed, down the hall and turned the Yale lock.

  Policemen barged in. A platoon of night-crawling uniforms fanned out and took over the house. A swish of nylon clothing, a hand on his shoulder, swivelling his body in a loop, a bended knee pushed into the back of John’s leg and his cheek squished and sliding down the wallpaper. ‘Who else is in the house, with you?’ screamed a voice in his ear. His locked arm jerked higher up his back, and tighter, to urge him towards speech.

  ‘Nobody.’

  No one waited for, or wanted, an explanation. Auntie Caroline had boxed her grief and gone home, could not stay a minute longer in that house. Jo was with his Auntie Teresa and it was unlikely she would return. A slackening in his arm, a loosening of his wrist and the shuffling of feet meant the policeman assigned to guard him was checking with the other cops. A smack in the back was more shocking than painful, it was aimed at the kidneys and meant to hurt, but the spittle dripping from his face from the cop guarding him hurt more. He was dragged out of the house like a paper bag, rain teeming down, wearing only his Y-fronts.

  Flung into the back of a panda car, cuffed, he tucked his hands into his lap. His neck scrunched and the bones of his shoulders poked out, like a cricket ready to hop, as he made himself smaller in the back seat and tried to stop shivering.

  The driver wore black leather gloves and his finger tapped a light beat on the steering wheel. He turned to study John, the face beneath his cap shiny and close-shaved. His heavy lips a non-committal line, favouring neither smile nor frown. A movement outside alerted them to a fellow officer leaving the house. A constable was stationed at the front door on guard duty, hands behind his back, as if he would be there for the duration. The front door of the car clicked open and the senior officer folded himself into the passenger seat beside the driver, taking his braided cap off, flinging it against the windscreen, letting it settle on top of the dashboard. Hot air from the heaters wafted the damp smell of rain and Polo mints into the back of the car. Nobody spoke. The engine kicked over and they rolled smoothly down the hill, leaving behind the convoy of Black Marias and other police vehicles.

  In the early hours of the morning the roads were free of other traffic. It took only ten minutes to get to Hall Street Station. Turning the car off-road and onto the cobbles of the side street, the driver negotiated the arched shadows of the rear entrance. The engine ticked over, the heating on. The senior officer let in a blast of cold air as he left the car, his long coat flapping and the back of his cap disappearing into the blackened stone of the building. The driver twisted his neck, chair creaking as he leaned back. ‘Don’t fucking move,’ he warned. A shipyard hammer clanked a steady thud. On and on it went, marking time.

  Two cops strolled across the quadrangle to collect their prisoner. They were insiders, wearing dark uniforms, but no hats against the rain. John shuffled his bum across the seat to get out. The car door opened. Blunt fingers reached inside for the prisoner and, although he offered no resistance, pulled him stumbling out of the car. The sturdier cop, standing behind his colleague, grabbed John’s arm, tugging him in close to his hip, and mooring the prisoner between them. He ground the heel of his Doc Martens into John’s bare foot. John squealed, a high, sharp sound that rang round the buildings.

  He was dragged through long, damp stone corridors that sucked in light and heat, pulled to the booking desk and pressed up against the hatch.

  ‘Jesus, is this what all the fuss was about?’ The officer on the booking desk used a ruler to flip open a book on the counter which looked like a ledger. He looked across at John, his face blue and stubbly with new growth, flashing uneven teeth as he yawned. ‘Let’s get him ­fingerprinted and down to the cells.’

  ‘I’ve been fingerprinted before,’ John piped up, trying to be helpful.

  A heel crashed down on his toes again. ‘Speak when you’re spoken to – Nonce.’

  The sergeant’s voice, bored as a parent at a children’s jamboree, warned his colleague, ‘That’s enough, Linton.’

  Day 63

  Clock time abolished. They left him to stew in a damp underground cell. Shiny white brick swimming from floor to ceiling. The caged light above his head created permanent twilight. A thin foam mattress and a scratchy blanket were his only possessions. He read the inscriptions on the walls and door of who was there, who was going to fuck who and fuck you, who was a grass, and Celtic and Rangers forever, until he knew what they said without having to raise his head from the mattress. He knew the drill. There was a thin ledge just off the floor that he and the mattress fitted onto.

  The day went on without him. He heard the hatches opening in other cells, the shuffle of feet, shouts of ‘Turnkey. Fucking turnkey,’ followed by the rattle of a flat hand on the thick metallic plate, but not once on his door. Nobody came to give him a cup of tea, or lunch, or even dinner, but he was too scared to make a fuss. He grew used to cold, shivering spasms, the musty stench of his body, tears, and the dryness of mouth that felt as if he had cotton wool lodged in his throat. The only pastime was sleep, but that was as out of reach as Paris, the warm voices of his mum or dad, or the safety of home.

  The rattle of a key in his cell door roused him. He heard a throaty laugh and a joke between gaolers, made funnier because they were shouting from one end of the corridor to the other. Tightly clutching the blanket, pulling it around his shoulders, making a suit of his dis­-comfort, he recognised in himself the creeping aura of dread preceding his fits. The turnkey stood staring in at him, the door open as if in some kind of invitation.

  ‘Let’s be having you.’ He took a step into the cell, the thick solidity of his body blocking the light behind him. John remembered his name, Linton, because of the way he had mauled his feet. Scrambling to stand, he stood with his back against the wall and the sheet draped in front of him. But the guard showed only a dead-eyed interest, flicking his head to indicate that he was to follow him out of the cell.

  Another turnkey, wiry with dank hair, was waiting outside the cell to act as an auxiliary escort. They marched John to the interview room where two suits were waiting. One lounged against the wall, smoking and watching John’s arrival with a bored expression. He was prematurely bald, the white dome of his crown shining and the sides of his hair shorn dark into his scalp. The window high above his head was hooked open, bringing a tang of the river and the noise of cars and buses. Because of the brighter light and the open window, John initially felt the room to be bigger than his cell, but with the clutter of table and chairs it also seemed tacky, huddled together and smaller.

  ‘What happened to his clothes?’ the detecti
ve sitting at the table asked Linton in a blokey tone. His hair and suit were the same slate-grey colour and his eyes a watery pale green, wrinkling into a kind of wry amusement, though everything else about him was ordered. He sat with his outdoor coat square on the back of the chair, feet under the table, notepad, pen, jug of water and two plastic cups lined up, tools of his trade, on his side of the table.

  ‘That’s what he was wearing when we arrested him, sir.’ Linton snapped to attention.

  ‘Or not wearing.’ The balding detective laughed, shrugging off any impropriety, and took a seat behind and to the side of his colleague.

  Linton huckled John round the table and into the seat facing them and went to stand guard by the door. The other turnkey marched off.

  The man sitting across from John introduced himself. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Allan, and this is Detective Morley.’ He nodded towards the man sitting with a pencil and notepad on his knee behind him and half turned to give John his full attention, ‘You know why you’re here?’

  ‘I’m no’ sure,’ John admitted. He had thought of little else, but could not come up with an answer. His musings after his mum’s death looped round his head. He imagined the ward had got in touch with the police, or the police had to get in touch with the ward and he would have to go back. But as far as he knew his mum had taken an overdose of prescribed medication and there was nothing he, or anyone, could have done.

  ‘What have you done with your sister, Alison?’ Detective Morley leaned forward to hiss at him. ‘Where have you stashed her?’

  John studied one police officer, then the other. ‘I don’t know whit you’re talkin’ about.’ His voice grew angry. ‘I was in hospital when she was taken.’

  ‘No, you werenae, sonny.’ Detective Morley, his pencil a prop which he waved like a weapon, did more talking than note-taking. ‘We’ve been there and checked. They said you treated the place like a hotel and swanned in and out whenever you felt like it. They can’t account for all your movements on that day.’

  ‘For God’s sake. I ran away once. Went back the next day.’

  ‘So you do admit you absconded?’ Chief Inspector Allan spoke with a forced familiarity, as if smoothing over a little difficulty between relatives.

  ‘Aye, but that’s different.’

  ‘How is it different?’ Chief Inspector Allan asked.

  John brooded, weary for an answer. ‘Nurses saw me comin’ in and oot,’ was all he could offer.

  Detective Morley chuckled. ‘What about all those other times when they never saw you coming in and out?’

  ‘I don’t know whit you’re talkin’ about. We were locked up twenty-four hours a day.’

  Chief Inspector Allan spoke through tight lips. ‘Easy enough to get out. And back in if you’ve a mind to.’

  ‘That one time. And I went through the front door.’

  He heard Chief Inspector Allan’s shoe knocking against the desk. The investigator hesitated before he spoke. ‘But you can see our problem?’

  ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat,’ Detective Morley added. ‘We checked the window in your room. Unlatched. Ground floor. Easy enough to slope in and out without anyone being any the wiser.’

  ‘And the psychiatrist, a Mr Williams, I believe,’ the senior officer revelled in the pronunciation, ‘said you’d a history of violence. You seriously assaulted a member of staff. He was going to move you to a more secure unit.’ He let this sink in, gauging John’s reactions.

  ‘That’s just pish,’ spluttered John. He clutched his hands and could not think of anything to counter with. ‘Whit did he let me oot for then?’

  ‘Quite understandable, compassionate grounds,’ said Chief Inspector Allan.

  ‘That was a mistake,’ Detective Morley cut in. ‘People like you have as much compassion as—’ He rapped his heel against the tiled floor, a crack that echoed round the room. ‘What have you done with your sister?’

  ‘And all those other little girls you abducted?’ Chief Inspector Allan asked with a drier voice, his eyes drilling into John’s, until the boy looked away confused. He poured water into one of the plastic cups, handed it to John, and spoke in a paternal tone, ‘It’s your mother’s funeral soon. We could easily arrange for you to be back on the same ward. Arrange an officer to escort you to her funeral. Then back to the cosy little ward routine. I’m sure you’ll soon be out, but only if you admit to the abduction of your sister and these other girls.’

  John choked up with crying, rocking back and forth in his chair, his downcast eyes focussed on the space underneath the desk. ‘But I didnae dae it.’

  Chief Inspector Allan leaned across, close enough for John to smell his Brut aftershave. ‘That’s not what your mother said. She left a note. Mentioned you in it.’

  Detective Morley spoke over the top of his colleague, enjoyed telling him, ‘That’s why she killed herself. Couldnae live with the knowledge of what her son had done.’

  John wriggled in his seat, wanting to stand up and flee, but Linton and Morley’s hostile gaze and Allan’s more sanguine look, kept him pinned to the seat of the chair. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘I loved my mum more than anything. She wouldnae say that.’

  ‘But she did.’ Chief Inspector Allan picked up his notepad. Underneath it was a scrap of paper, which he kept half covered with the fleshy part of his hand, as if reluctant to show its full content. He recognised his mum’s handwritten scrawl in soft pencil.

  To who it may concern Joey found out about me and came back to tell me little Ally went to hell and I wiz to ask John where to find her body and the other wee wans killed to god

  The uncrossed ts and stunted lettering broke him, and he bent over the table and sobbed. ‘But I didnae do it,’ he said.

  He felt Detective Morley at his back, leaning over him, spluttering with flecks of saliva, ‘You fucking well did,’ drilling the message into the back of his head. Chief Inspector Allan gazed over, then looked away, engrossed in the study of the few notes on his desk.

  Detective Morley crouched down at the side of John’s chair. He slanted his left hand over his mouth, whispering, ‘You’ve got another sister haven’t you?’

  John angled his head, his eyes darting sideways, and found himself also whispering, ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Jose-phine, isn’t it?’ Detective Morley broke his sister’s name in two like a stick.

  ‘That’s right.’ John’s lowered his voice even further, the words tight and pinched as he held his breath.

  ‘We’ll need to drag your sister in, you know. Common decency suggests we leave no stone unturned. Bring her in for questioning. Sit her in the very chair you’re sitting in. Aiding and abetting.’ Detective Morley’s laugh turned into a sneer. ‘I’ll guess she’ll get time. It’s up to you.’

  John’s legs buckled when he stood up. Linton moved towards him, but Chief Inspector Allan held a hand up and he backed off, once again standing sentry at the door. John stumbled towards the window, looking out. His narrow shoulders twitching as he cried.

  ‘You admit to abducting your sister, Alison Connelly, on the morning of 21st February, 1973?’ asked Chief Inspector Allan.

  ‘I must have,’ John said, wiping away tears.

  Detective Morley punched the air as if he had scored a winning Cup Final goal. ‘Yes.’

  Chief Inspector Allan took his time reading out a list of girls’ names, with the addendum of days and dates. At each one he paused to look up at John and let him answer, reminding him that a nod was not enough, he would have to answer for the record. When they finished, he slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You did well.’ But his self-satisfied smile was for himself and the other policemen.

  ‘Good work.’ Chief Inspector Allan reached into the back pocket of his coat and pulled out a five-pack of Panatela and took his time lighting up, smoke fanning out in front of his face. He rolled a slim cigar across the table towards John and watched the confusion on his face. Detective Morley sna
tched it away. Shoulders heaving, tie askew, the detective crowed in delight as he blew out cheap cigar smoke. Chief Inspector Allan’s chair scraped across the floor. He passed the cigar packet to Linton, knocking formality on its head, and insisted he light up and join his senior officers in their moment of triumph.

  Epilogue

  Fastmoves, the estate agent, had planted a wooden flag in the front garden. A sign of progress. Jo had the money, the get-up-and-go, and she had bought their council house. They had agreed John would have to find somewhere else to live. Well, she had agreed. It needed far too much work before she could rent it to people like herself, working professionals. The fixtures and fittings were shambolic, still the same telly in the living room, screen like a fishbowl. Tan couch and chairs. Plastic tat Jo had called them, forgetting the reverence they were held in when she was young.

  Da had barely allowed Jo, Ally or John to sit in them. Mum had glowed and kept the plastic covers on for a week, nearly two. They were supposed to hover above the seats like some kind of Star Trek teleport seeking solidity, but not too much at once.

  And don’t get Jo started on what needed to be done to the kitchen. It needed a bomb in it, she had said. It just wouldn’t do. She crossed her arms over her breasts for a tour of their childhood bedrooms and heirlooms. The old wardrobes filled with photographs and clothes nobody would ever wear. It just wouldn’t do. The windows and doors needed replacing. It was hellish. She wondered aloud how anyone could survive like that for nigh on twenty years.

  John was not surprised to hear someone chapping at the front door. He took his time getting up from the armchair and traipsing down the hall to answer it.

  He hadn’t bothered overmuch with snazzing up, just pulled on an old brown cardigan, denims, and left his toes poking out of Jesus sandals, figuring whoever it was hadn’t come to view him, but the rooms and their fixtures and fittings. But he wasn’t sure. Over the years the press had turned up in droves. Camped themselves ­outside on the anniversaries when the girls first went missing, pointing cameras through the windows, so he was reduced to hiding in the darkness of his own home. Graffiti appeared like ectoplasm on the external walls and doors, telling him what he was and what was to become of him. He couldn’t really blame them.