Hellbound: The Tally Man

by David McCaffrey

  Approximately one million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland during this period. The proximate cause of the famine, a potato disease known as potato blight, ravaged a third of the population that was entirely dependent on the crop for food. The situation was further exacerbated by political, social and economic factors that remain the subject of historical debate to this day.

  A watershed in Irish history, its effects permanently altered the islands demographic, politically and culturally, for both native Irish and the resulting diaspora, establishing the famine into folk memory and creating a dividing line in the Irish historical narrative.

  * * *

  Joe had had many opportunities over his years as a journalist to feel guilty and self-loathing for what he did. His no-holds barred approach to obtaining information often left him with a hollow feeling inside. So much so that he sometimes wondered if he had traded his soul for a scoop and not realised. He justified his actions by telling himself it was important the public were given all the necessary information to understand what had led up to the crime, irrespective of who may be hurt in the process. Further solace was taken knowing that those he was reporting on should have had guilt in spades, more than enough to balance the scales. Today, he didn’t feel quite so single minded.

  He had suffered from guilt, whether because of the byline that identified a victim’s relative or the broken promise not to use a quote. But it had never been the guilt that ate away at your insides. It had been more like how you felt after overindulging in too much chocolate - easily corrected with an apology, or re-evaluation the next day. Yet somehow he felt that if he didn’t treat this interview correctly, he would feel a guilt that could not be so easily remedied.

  Checking his watch, he placed his shoulder bag on the floor and reclined back into the sofa. The creaking full grain leather was accompanied by a mild release of an earthy smell that reminded Joe of getting into a brand new car for the first time. As he waited for Margaret Keld to reenter the room, he became aware that his hangover was receding, causing his body to crave food as a counter-balance to his plummeting blood sugar. He started to feel a little sluggish and silently hoped he could start the interview as soon as possible.

  Before leaving the office, Joe had been on the receiving end of a friendly reminder from Ciaran to tread carefully during his interview. Joe knew his editor didn’t want anything negative ricocheting back to the paper from any of the relatives he was hoping to speak to. Given the fact that so little time had passed since the execution, the people of Ireland needed space to move past Obadiah’s crimes and association with their country. They needed the time to dream of better days ahead.

  And in spite of the reasons for his visit, Joe’s welcome into the house had been more cordial than he had expected, though he could tell from the moment she answered the door that she didn’t like him or what he stood for. He accepted the only reason he had access at all was not his celebrity as a journalist, but because Ciaran had given his own personal assurance that her daughter’s name would not be sullied or her character besmirched in Joe’s book.

  The living room he had been ushered into was swathed in shadows. The blinds were closed, giving it the unnatural feeling the slated sunlight provided with its contrast of dark and bright. Photographs adorned the walls of Margaret and two people who, upon closer inspection, Joe recognised as her husband and late daughter captured in happier times - before the Tally Man. A flat screen television hung on the chimney breast above a faux log fire which was currently unlit. Weaved anaglypta wallpaper gave the room a timeless appearance, the shadows from the blinds adding larger patterns to its initial weave.

  A smell of melted molasses drifted into the living room from the opened kitchen door. A spider’s web hanging in the corner wafted softly in the breeze caused by the door below it as Margaret moved in carefully, carrying a tray containing tea and a plate of biscuits.

  “You can be my guinea pig. I haven’t baked in a long time, so I’m not quite sure what they’ll be like.” She set the tray down on the table in front of Joe. “Do you take sugar, Mr. O’Connell?” Her tone was polite, but curt.

  Joe leaned forwards. “No, thank you. And it’s Joe. May I?” He gestured towards the biscuits.

  “Please, help yourself,” Margaret insisted as she poured the tea into two small, plain china cups. Placing the cup in front of him, she sat down opposite in a matching leather chair.

  Her graying hair was tied neatly back in a ponytail, exposing a round, heavily lined face. Brown eyes stared down at the cup of tea she held in her hands, as though she were waiting for it to reveal an answer to an unspoken question. Dressed in a pale, blue shirt and long, pleated black skirt, Joe thought Margaret looked as though she had forgone any interest to display vibrancy in life and had instead chosen to utilise colours that reflected her heart – empty and alone.

  He rubbed his hands together vigorously to remove any crumbs before reaching into his shoulder bag beside him and removing his dictaphone. He shook it gently from side to side to indicate its significance.

  “Do you mind if we record this?” he asked, swallowing the last of his biscuit.

  “No, that’s fine,” Margaret replied quietly.

  Joe pressed the record button and set it down on the table in front of them. He rested his notepad on his knees as he scribbled a heading on the page – M.Keld interview. 16th September 2011.

  Lacing his fingers, he took a deep breath before speaking. “Mrs. Keld, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I know you’ve spoken to my editor, but just for the record, the whole purpose of this interview is to get an idea of your feelings concerning your daughter’s murder and the subsequent linking of it to Obadiah Stark. I assure you that my book will not glorify his crimes. Is that okay?”

  “You can call me Margaret, and yes it’s okay.” Her voice was now strong, as thought she had mentally prepared herself for his questions, a direct contrast to her appearance and demeanor.

  Joe took another sip of tea before leaning back in the sofa, trying to take on a relaxed posture so as to make his subject feel at ease. Though he already had abstract information concerning his initial questions, he knew it was important to follow a logical chain in order to lead Margaret into answering his more difficult questions later on.

  “So, the night when your daughter went missing, when did you realise something was wrong?”

  Margaret paused for a moment. “Kizzie always rang me when she was on her way home from work, without fail. She was good like that. If her mobile battery went flat, she would ring me from a phone box. So, that night when I didn’t hear from her, I just knew something had happened.”

  Joe smiled sadly. “Kizzie? Was that your nickname for Katherine?”

  Margaret’s face seemed to glow slightly as she recalled the origins of her daughter’s name abbreviation. “Yes. It was her father who actually started calling her it when she was a little girl. I was never quite sure where it came from, but it always sounded cute so it kinda stuck.”

  “And after what happened to Katherine, how did you feel?” Joe knew it was an abstract question, but he had to give the book contrast against the details of Obadiah’s crimes, he had to offer some human emotion.

  Margaret hesitated as if searching for the correct words. “I felt crushed. I am not sure if you have children, Mr. O’Connell, but when you lose a child, your heart cracks open a chasm so deep you know it will never heal. To know you’ll never hold them again, hear them laugh again, never see them dance again. The grief is relentless.”

  Her eyes took on a distant expression before continuing.

  “When I got to the hospital to identify the body, she was just lying there in a gown as though she had fallen asleep. Of course the nurses had done their best to smarten her up for me. I asked them to let some sunlight into the room. I didn’t want to be holding her for the last time in darkness.

  As the nurse opened the blinds, a sun catcher in the shape of
a rainbow on the window caught the sunlight. And you know, the room was filled with brilliant flashes of colour. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the sheets covering her. And that was my final memory of my daughter. Not the fact that someone had tortured and stabbed her to death. My final, lasting memory was of her bathed in a rainbow.”

  Joe wasn’t sure how to proceed after Margaret’s recollection. He noticed she had refused to call him Joe – keeping it formal. Needing to know more on her thoughts of her daughter’s killer, he tried to phrase his next question delicately, but couldn’t think of a way to soften its intention.

  “When were you made aware that your daughter was the victim of a string of murders?”

  She thought for a moment before replying. “It was a few days after Kizzie’s death. The Gardaí came to see me and informed me that a suspect in a number of crimes in America was also a suspect in my daughter’s and another girl’s murder.”

  “They didn’t tell you anything about the man they were referring to?”

  “Not at that time, no. It was a few weeks later when another girl had been found that his name was released, linking him to Kizzie and all the others.” Joe could tell Margaret was being careful to not mention Obadiah’s name, as though speaking it out loud would summon his presence.

  “And how did you feel once he was caught?”

  “At the same time, relieved and appalled. Relieved that no other family would have to suffer the loss that we suffered.”

  “And appalled, because…?”

  “…because it had taken so long to catch him. The man had been murdering people on both sides of the world for nearly twenty years and no one had ever come close to stopping him. He made a joke of the world’s law enforcement, here and in America. If they had done their jobs right in the States the first time round, my daughter would never have died. Then again, I could say the same for the Gardaí. They were just as incompetent.”

  Joe held Margaret’s gaze. He had to admit, he agreed with her. Obadiah had made the police forces look like the Keystone Cops. But her opinion was jaded by ignorance and a refusal to accept that the man they had been up against was an exceptionally intelligent and proficient individual.

  Obadiah had felt no empathy for any of his victims and, Joe suspected, for no other human being. His lifetime spent scrutinising people’s emotional reactions combined with his intellect, had endowed him with the extraordinary ability to lie and manipulate people. With his handsome, everyday appearance, he had been able to blend in and be innocuous. Even on death row, he had shown no sorrow or regret. The only emotion he had ever seemed to express was one of frustration at being caught. To him, it had meant he was outsmarted.

  “I understand you and your husband separated not long after Katherine’s death. He certainly spoke some powerful words after her killer was executed.” Joe again felt compelled to push her on her about Obadiah. He knew she was being evasive in really addressing it.

  Margaret glared at him, as though offended by the question’s personal nature, but almost as quickly appeared to compose herself before responding.

  “Richard struggled after Kizzie’s death. We both did. But he found it much harder. She had been his little girl. They were so close. He became so full of hatred and bitterness that his whole personality seemed to change overnight. He slept less and drank more. He started not turning in for work and when he did, he wouldn’t be sober. He would fall asleep in her bedroom, holding her picture. Don’t get me wrong, Mr O’Connell, I felt like I was dying every day. But Richard, he just couldn’t accept she was gone. We began arguing all the time, about the police, about his drinking, about redecorating her room. Everything just became a fight. So we spilt up and he moved back to Belfast where he grew up. We spoke on the phone, but the first time I saw him again was the day of the execution.”

  Joe nodded slowly, taking in Margaret’s expression. He felt a slight twinge of what he could only describe as self-loathing at his line of questioning. He could see that she was struggling with her recollection of her daughter.

  Scribbling a few notes on his pad, he decided to focus on the day Obadiah died.

  “The execution? You were there?” Joe knew she had been, but wanted to hear what she would say.

  Margaret’s emotional leakage was obvious, even for someone not looking for it. It was apparent that recalling the event filled her with repulsion.

  “Yes, I was there. Richard accompanied me, though we were separated at that time. I had never even been to a prison before, so that was stressful enough. But seeing him up close for the first time…it was horrifying. I hadn’t attended his trial, so this was the first time I had seen him in person.

  “He looked so…normal. Like someone you could walk by every day in the street. I found it hard to believe that he could have taken my Kizzie’s life and so many others. But when he spoke…that was when I knew he was a monster. His voice held no remorse. He showed no sorrow or regret. He was just… apathetic about the whole thing. He deserves to suffer. I hope they really make him suffer.”

  Joe frowned at Margaret’s present tense terminology. “Make him suffer? How do you mean?”

  Her eyes widened for a microsecond with a flash of fear, before she composed herself and spoke after a short pause. “Those in charge of his soul in Hell. I hope they make him suffer for all eternity for what he did.”

  Joe stared at Margaret intensely. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he suddenly knew she was hiding something. Whether it had been something virtually imperceptible in her tone, her sentence repetition or an electrical current she had given off - he didn’t know what, and he couldn’t explain how he knew. He just knew. In that moment’s pause before she had answered him, he had seen her honesty waver like a flame in a draft.

  Joe had no doubt that she wasn’t trying to deliberately mislead him. She was a truthful person who had simply just provided him with a false answer in an emotive situation as to what she had meant. He had sensed her realisation at what she had almost implied by accident, and knew she had then made a conscious, considered choice to alter what she had subconsciously wanted to say. He was no Paul Ekman, but even Joe could sense her leakage of an emotion she was trying hard to conceal.

  He jotted on his pad the words ‘Hiding something?’ and heavily underlined it. Joe raised his eyes to see Margaret brushing some crumbs from her lap. Her momentary loss of composure had now been replaced by his original impression of her as strong and focused.

  Joe swallowed hard. Was he misreading her statement? Or did she know something? If she did, he had no idea what it could be. The man was dead.

  “How did you feel, knowing that your daughter’s killer had finally been brought to justice?”

  Margaret’s face took on a hard expression, her voice full of explosive venom.

  “Justice? His execution wasn’t justice, it was mercy. Did he suffer in pain and anguish like my little girl did? Did he cry from the pain that I’m sure his others victims suffered? I know you were there, Mr. O’Connell. Do you think his death was inhumane, or practically relaxed?”

  Joe considered his answer carefully. “I think that there is no humane way to putting a person to death and that, as a society, we have a voyeuristic urge to observe such acts. I don’t know if I believe in the adage of ‘lex talens’, but I do know that his suffering will have been brief compared to that of your daughter and that there is no real way to ever compensate or balance the loss of a child at the hands of another.”

  Margaret nodded her satisfaction at Joe’s answer. ‘Evasive, Mr O’Connell, but I understand your wish not to upset me and I appreciate it. Ultimately, there is no punishment that would have ever been enough for that man. His torment was brief. Mine is never-ending.”

  Her eyes began to moisten slightly as she fought back the emotions bubbling beneath her composed façade. Excusing herself, Margaret left the living room and went upstairs, obviously struggling with the discussion concerning her daughter’s killer.

&n
bsp; The guilt that Joe had been fighting to avoid began to slowly creep up on him like a moor land mist, embracing him at the ankles and slowly crawling up his legs and across his stomach, provoking a slightly nauseated feeling. He stood and tried to shake it away, telling himself that his questions were necessary to provide a balanced argument to his book. He needed the human emotion to counteract the veracity and repellent detail that Obadiah’s story would provide.

  He clicked off the dictaphone and returned to look at the photographs adorning the walls, Joe took note of Margaret’s face. He hadn’t particularly paid attention to it on his arrival, but thinking back to his place sat opposite her, he could now see that where she had once been youthful looking given her late forty-something age, her face had now lost its innocence. Her small, animated features had developed lines and creases from the anguish she had endured, her cheekbones pulling her face down into an almost permanent expression of sadness. Realising the physical toll her daughter’s death had had on her, the psychological stress notwithstanding, ushered Joe towards the realisation that he hadn’t understood anything about Obadiah Stark in the sense that his legacy hadn’t died with him, but was everlasting.

  And yet Joe couldn’t avoid the reoccurring sense that Margaret was hiding something. On the one hand, he could accept that her tense sentence structure when she was discussing Obadiah’s suffering was simply a by-product of her on-going pain at her daughter’s loss. But the nosy, journalistic side of him couldn’t shake the feeling that her face had given away a lot more than her speech pattern ever could have.

  He turned as Margaret re-entered the room, smiling at her as he moved back towards the sofa. She made no attempt to sit back down. Her eyes were red and swollen.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. O’Connell, but I can’t continue our interview. I thought I’d be okay after so long, talking about Kizzie and… him. But it’s still too raw. I do appreciate what Ciaran told me you’re trying to do. But I don’t think I can talk about it anymore. Certainly not at the moment anyway.”