He had tried again to get Dr Hill to talk about his wife. But he had drawn a complete blank.
‘I have nothing to say on that subject. As far as I am concerned the woman no longer exists.’
Stephen Hill was equally reticent. ‘My mother,’ he said, pursing his lips. ‘Now to whom exactly would you be referring?’
‘But she was there, at Judith’s funeral.’
‘Was she? I didn’t notice.’
‘And your father, does he feel the same way as you?’
Stephen smiled, a narrow rictus of the face and lips. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘is a passionate man. He is capable of great love and of equally great hate.’
And a possessive man too? Jack pondered the question as he stood in the doorway of the room at the top of the house. It must have once been an attic. The beams and timbers of the roof were exposed, and a large dormer window had been let into them. North-facing, he reckoned, so the light that came through the panes was pure and clear, untainted by the gold of direct sunshine. It fell now upon a large easel that stood in the middle of the floor. And lit up the canvas which rested against its uprights. Jack stepped forward and looked at it closely. It was a painting of two children. It was unfinished, he could see that, but it was still very beautiful. The children gazed into the eyes of the viewer, and as he moved away from them their gaze moved with him. He could feel their eyes on his back as he walked slowly around the room. Looking at the shelves, the stacks of canvases, some framed, others rolled and standing in bundles, the boxes of paints and brushes, the piles of paper of differing weights and gauges. In one corner was some kind of a press, ink-stained, and beside it a large rectangular sink. He leaned over it and smelt immediately the pungent stench of acid. There was a row of black and white photographs framed on one wall. He could see immediately who they were. Judith and Stephen as babies and small children. And Mark Hill too as a young man, handsome and strong in swimming trunks and tennis whites. And sitting on a canvas stool outside a small tent, tending a Primus stove, waving a wooden spoon in one hand, and laughing. In one corner of the room was what looked like a large cupboard, surrounded with black curtains. When he pushed them aside he found a photographic enlarger, a workbench, and a sink with running water. Everywhere there was paint. Spattered and dripped all over the floor, the work surfaces, even on the walls up to waist level. And such colours. Blues, greens, bright yellows and purples. And above all reds. Scarlets, vermilions, crimsons, and a red the colour of ox blood, deep and dark. What a strange man, Jack thought as he stared around him. He hates his wife so much that he won’t even mention her name, and yet he has kept all this untouched for years and years and years. Possession by proxy, would that be it?
He leant over and looked down at the dark red drops that formed a haphazard pattern over the bare floorboards. They were slightly raised, slightly bubbled. He scratched at them with his fingertips and saw that they had coloured the edge of his nails. He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. There was no characteristic smell of paint. Just another smell like an old-fashioned butcher’s shop. He stood up and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his fingers carefully on it, looking at the smears of red across the white cotton. He walked over to the workbench. There was a row of tools lying neatly in place. A couple of sharp knives, and a number of gouges of different sizes with wooden handles. The kind that were used for making lino cuts, he thought, remembering art classes at school. He picked them up carefully, one by one, using his handkerchief to handle them. He thought of the way the lino would peel up from the tile in a thick coil of brown. He walked to the centre of the room, underneath the skylight. He held each of them up and noticed that the largest had a fine line of red trapped between the edge of the metal and the wood into which it was set. He laid it down again, carefully, on the bench. Below was a row of long drawers. He pulled each open in turn. The top two contained drawings, nature studies of plants and animals. Very beautiful, very detailed. The next had paintings, sketches in watercolours, faded now, muted and delicate. He bent down to pull open the one at the bottom. It was filled with sheets and sheets of paper, all blank as far as he could see. He reached down and flicked through them, and felt beneath his fingers something else. Shiny, hard to grasp. He squatted and took hold of the drawer, pulling it from its runners. He turned it upside down, spilling its contents all over the floor, and felt his heart jump and his breath catch in his throat. Polaroid pictures of Judith lay scattered around him. He picked them up and looked at them in turn. In all she was naked, her body arranged in poses that made nausea suddenly rise up from his stomach. In some she was alive, and in some she was dead. She looked terrified, hurt and vulnerable. Her living eyes and her dead eyes stared directly into his. Asking him for help. Begging him to save her. But it was too late. Far too late for Judith now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TOM SWEENEY WOULD do the interrogation. Tom Sweeney was good at it. Jack would sit in the corner and watch. Make notes, monitor what was being said, intervene if he thought that Tom had let anything slip by. Except that Tom never did.
‘OK, before we start let’s summarize what we have.’ It was six in the morning. They were going to pick up Dr Hill in half an hour. They would hold him for six hours, then they would renew the order. Twelve hours to get a confession. An admission of guilt.
‘Crucial question number one. When did Judith Hill die?’
Today was the 23rd June. It was a week since her body had been found. Johnny Harris reckoned she’d been dead for about six days. So she was killed, they thought, somewhere around the 10th of the month.
‘How was she killed?’
That was easy. They knew she had been strangled. Again Harris considered, from the damage that had been done to her neck, the kind of force that had been used, that her killer was most likely to be a man. And a large one at that.
‘What other injuries did she have?’
Laceration of the vagina and anus. Severe bruising on the thighs and external genitalia. Also heavy bruising on the ribs and stomach, which had caused rupture of the uterus. Bleeding from the vagina. Bruising to eyes, cheekbones and nose. Probable cause: blows to the face and head before death. Bleeding from the nose and mouth.
‘What physical evidence do we have?’
Bloodstains found in the upstairs room. Bloodstains on the lino-cutting tools. Dr Hill’s fingerprints everywhere. Photographs of Judith taken both before and after death. Evidence that the rope used to strangle her had come from the house. The doctor’s tie that had been threaded through her fingers. Hairs from Judith’s body found in the doctor’s car. The linen sheet in which she had been wrapped was identical in every way to other sheets found in the house. And Dr Hill himself had identified the rubber groundsheet as one that he had bought many years ago.
‘What do you reckon, Jack? What’s your considered assessment?’ Sweeney’s grin was getting bigger and bigger.
‘I’d say it’s a hole in one, most definitely. A birdie, an eagle, a fucking albatross, or whatever you call it. And I’d say we should get going.’
He sat in the corner and listened. Sweeney was taking Dr Hill through that weekend, the last weekend that he had seen Judith.
She had come to stay on the Monday before. It was the housekeeper’s annual holiday. He needed someone to cook for him, clean up after him, generally take care of him.
‘Judith always did it, you know, before she got into trouble. From when she was quite young, ten perhaps, twelve, before she was a teenager. She was very good around the house. A very good girl. She always wanted to please me, make me happy. She used to come home from school and before she’d even started on her homework she’d have prepared the vegetables for dinner.’
‘So you must have enjoyed spending time with her, it must have seemed like old times.’
‘Well, you know the way it is. I was in and out. I have surgery here twice a day. And then I do house calls as well. And I’d be visiting patients in hospital, k
eeping an eye on their progress. But we ate together every evening.’
‘So explain to us, Dr Hill, if you would be so kind, explain to us how it was that you say you didn’t realize that she had gone missing. I don’t quite understand that.’
‘Well, you see, I went away, that weekend. For the Saturday night. I was invited by friends who live in Wicklow, Laragh to be precise. They invited me for dinner and, because of the ridiculous laws about consumption of alcohol and driving, they suggested I stay the night. And when I got back home on Sunday, there was no sign of her. But everything was left perfectly clean and tidy, and there was even a stew in the oven, waiting to be heated up.’
‘No note, no message, no nothing?’
‘No, there wasn’t, but that didn’t surprise me. She had done what I asked of her. The housekeeper was due back on the Monday, so I just assumed that she had left, gone back to college, whatever. You know, I gave up trying to keep track of her movements a long time ago.’
They had checked, of course, with the friends in Wicklow. They corroborated his story, up to a point. They had asked him to come for pre-dinner drinks around seven o’clock. He hadn’t arrived until eight-thirty. He hadn’t given any explanation for his lateness. They had thought his manner strange, distracted. He hadn’t spoken much. He had in fact behaved quite rudely. He had got very drunk that night. Not like him, they said, he was usually a temperate man. And then in his drunkenness he had talked a lot about Judith. How disappointed he was by her. He could never forgive the shame she had brought on the family. How after all this time she reminded him too much of his wife. And the shame that she had brought on them too. And they said he had left, quite abruptly, sometime after midnight. They had remonstrated with him, warned him of the dangers of drinking and driving. But he had just got up and gone. Just like that.
Sweeney was going through his polite phase. Jack watched him. He could hear the contempt in Dr Hill’s voice. Sweeney was patient, persistent, thorough in his questioning. Dr Hill could barely bring himself to respond.
‘So where did you stay that night? Your friends tell us that you most definitely didn’t stay with them.’
‘No, they’re right, I didn’t. I stopped the car at Kilmacanogue and I slept there until dawn. Then I went home.’
‘Home to kill your daughter, was that it?’
Dr Hill didn’t reply. He looked into the middle distance and sighed.
‘Your friends, your old friends, they were very concerned about you that night. They said your behaviour was uncharacteristic, unusual. They were quite shocked by you. Can you explain what was on your mind?’
‘Explain to you? Why should I? What business is it of yours whether I’m drunk, sober, polite, rude. Whatever I am?’
Jack listened to Sweeney explaining why it was in his own interest to be more forthcoming. There was silence. Sweeney sighed. He put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a large yellow envelope. He held it upside down. The photographs dropped on to the table. Sweeney fanned them out. Jack waited for the response. But there was none. Dr Hill looked away.
‘What do you expect me to say?’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do? Cry, beat my breast, is that it? Well, I won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘She disgusted me when she was alive. She disgusts me now she’s dead. I didn’t take those photographs. I don’t know who did. But I’m not surprised by them. Not that long ago Judith did that sort of thing to pay for her drug habit. She was used to it. I asked her once how she could bear it. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Needs must.’ Can you credit it? I saw her, you know. I went looking for her one night. I drove into town. I drove around Fitzwilliam Square, then down by the canal. There was a row of women, all waiting. I drove slowly so I could see her. She didn’t realize it was me. She turned around and she pulled open her blouse. I saw her breasts. My own daughter. I remembered how I used to bathe her when she was small, after her mother went. It was a nightly ritual. The two, my beloved son and daughter, in the bath together. They had such perfect beautiful little bodies. And afterwards I would dress them in their pyjamas and put them to bed and read to them until they fell asleep. Then I would sit and watch them in case they might have bad dreams, nightmares, and they might want me. And this was the payment I got for all that love and devotion. My own daughter waving her tits at me on a cold, wet, bloody awful night.’ He stopped and buried his head in his hands, then he looked up. ‘You asked me why I behaved so uncharacteristically, as you so delicately put it, that night. Well, my daughter had just told me that she was pregnant. She asked me to help her get rid of the baby. She asked me in my capacity as a doctor. Not as a father. And that, my friends, is the last thing that I will say to you. I will now exercise my right to silence.’
They kept him there until the last possible moment. And then they let him go. The statement went out to the media. A man had been arrested and questioned for the murder of Judith Hill. He had been released. A file was being prepared and would be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. And in the meantime, Jack thought, they would watch him and they would wait.
Rachel heard the announcement on the nine o’clock news that night. She was sitting beside Clare Bowen’s bed. The light was turned off in the small room. A strong smell of new-mown grass drifted in on a gentle breeze. She got up and made as if to shut the open door. Clare put out her hand and plucked at her sleeve.
‘Leave it. I like it like that.’
Rachel liked it too. The grass on the lawn at the back of the house had been ankle-deep when she arrived in the early evening. It was strewn with daisies and buttercups, and crowned with the waving heads of plantains. She had dragged the lawnmower from the shed and tugged hard at the cord until, with a couple of splutters and groans and a gush of grey smoke, it had burst into a raucous screech. She had raked the clippings into soft piles, then taken off her shoes and walked barefoot up and down, feeling her toes sink into the soft springiness of the grass. Then she had lain down on it for half an hour and dozed until Clare had called her in.
Now they watched the television pictures. An old photograph of Judith, taken, Rachel was sure, when she was sixteen or so. Shots of the outside of the house and the place where her body had been found. The Garda team at work. An interview with Jack Donnelly about progress so far, and then the shot of a man being bundled from the station into a waiting car. A coat was held over his head, but Rachel recognized him immediately. A big man. A strong man. Judith had dreaded his visits.
‘Why does he come?’ she had said. ‘He hates it here. He hates me. We have nothing to say to each other.’
‘And was it always like that?’ Rachel had pulled her head on to her shoulder to comfort her.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she had replied. ‘Maybe when I was small we got on OK. I was always so good. I was polite and thoughtful. I always put him first, but then as I got older. I don’t know. It was different.’
‘You knew her, didn’t you?’ Clare tried to lift her head from the pillow, but the effort was too much for her.
Rachel nodded.
‘What was she like?’
‘She was lovely. She was clever. She was very funny. A great mimic.’
‘And that man there. Do you know him?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘No, but I know who he is. He’s her father.’
There was silence then. Rachel got up and went into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard and took out the container of pills. Antibiotics and painkillers. Opiates, DF 118s and sleeping pills. Halcyon was the name printed on the label. Rachel smiled at the notion. Andrew Bowen had counted them out and left them.
‘Give them to her with some juice,’ he said. ‘There’s orange and passion fruit in a carton in the fridge. It’s her favourite.’
Rachel put ice cubes in a tall glass and filled it to the top. She sat down beside the bed again and lifted Clare’s head.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘it’s time for your pills.’
�
��Not the sleeping pills, not yet. I want to stay awake for a bit longer.’ She opened her mouth for the others and swallowed them down with a gulp from the glass. Juice ran down her chin and on to her nightdress. Rachel bent and wiped it away.
‘You’re kind.’ Clare’s voice was barely audible. ‘Very kind.’ She lay back on the pillow. ‘He’s paying you, I hope, for this?’
Rachel nodded.
‘He needs his time by himself. He has a woman he goes to. I know all about it. It’s not love. It’s never love with Andrew.’
Rachel lifted the sheet away from Clare’s body, then smoothed it down, tucking her in firmly all around.
‘It wasn’t love with me either. In the beginning maybe, but not for long.’
‘And you, what was it for you?’ Rachel fluffed up the quilt and tidied the books into a neat pile beside the bed.
‘It was love for me. No one could understand what I saw in him. He was gawky and clumsy. But he was clever, so bright and funny. I laughed all the time when I was with him.’
‘Here.’ Rachel held out the sleeping pills. ‘You should take them now. It’s late. You need your rest.’
The woman in the bed smiled. ‘It’s not sleep I need. It’s something a bit more permanent. We’ve talked about it, a lot. In the beginning we talked about when would be the best time. And then I got better and for a while I thought it had all been a mistake, a misdiagnosis. And then the symptoms came back and this time there was no mistaking them.’
Rachel watched her eyes flick uncontrollably from side to side.
‘And so we’ve decided. It’ll be sooner rather than later. The problem is how to do it. These pills, these things I have to take, you can’t overdose on them. They’re benzodiazepines, unfortunately, not barbiturates. They bring forgetfulness, a respite, but it’s only temporary.’
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