by Claire Allan
‘What on earth has Alex got to do with any of this?’ she asks, blinking at us.
‘Alex had the balls to do what you didn’t,’ Ciara says and I crumple at the mention of his name.
My Alex. My husband. Sitting with the police now.
‘Alex made sure he was punished for it. Alex made sure he was dead,’ Ciara adds.
Kathleen blinks in my direction, taking in the expression on my face. She turns her gaze to Ciara.
‘What are you talking about?’ she asks and her voice is heavy with bewilderment.
‘Alex, my Alex,’ I say as evenly as I can. ‘He told us this morning. He was with Joe when he died. He found him unwell and …’ I can’t say the rest. I can’t bring myself to have someone, especially not Kathleen, judge Alex.
‘And what?’ Kathleen asks.
Ciara continues. ‘He didn’t call for help. He chose not to. He saw the diary and he was so upset, so angry, he let my father die.’ Ciara’s voice is devoid of emotion. She is not upset with Alex. She’s not angry with him. ‘He’s with the police now. Making a statement about it all.’
‘They took him away,’ I blurt, thinking of his stricken face as he climbed into the back of the police car.
Kathleen is shaking her head. ‘That’s impossible,’ she says.
‘It’s all too possible. Those two officers, King and Black or whatever their names are. They cautioned him and he left with him.’
Kathleen is still shaking her head. I want to rattle her. To grab her by the shoulders and scream in her face that it’s her fault, just like Ciara screamed in her face.
‘No. Not that. I’m not talking about the police. I’m talking about Joe. It’s impossible he was still alive when Alex went into the room.’
She looks stricken. Panicked for the first time in all of this. Her eyes dart between Ciara and me.
‘He was dead. He was definitely dead when I left the room. I made sure of it,’ she stutters.
Chapter Seventy-One
Ciara
Now
I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. Kathleen? Her words stop me in my tracks.
‘What?’ I exclaim, and I can see that Heidi’s eyes are as wide as mine.
Kathleen is fidgeting, curling her hair behind her ear. Her legs jiggling up and down with nervous energy. She shakes her head periodically, as if trying to put together the pieces of a puzzle in her mind, and then stops.
‘I … should’ve checked for a pulse. But he wasn’t breathing. I know that. He was still and he’d stopped fighting me …’
I’m dazed by her words.
‘I don’t understand,’ I tell her.
There is nothing about this that makes sense. Kathleen has grieved the loudest and hardest of all of us and now she’s saying she was responsible all along? Were her tears borne out of guilt and not grief?
‘I don’t know how I can make this any clearer,’ Kathleen says. ‘I … I killed him.’ She pauses, chokes back a sob then takes a deep breath to try to compose herself. ‘I put a pillow over his face, a knee to his chest, and I held it down until he stopped moving.’
She is looking at neither of us as she speaks. It’s as if she is replaying her actions in her head. I see her shudder.
‘Did you know it takes longer than it usually does in the movies to kill someone that way? You have to … well, you have to try and put pressure on their chest, too. I can’t stop thinking about it. How I had to do it. How I felt him struggle beneath me, but I was trying to make it easier for him. To make it quicker. I read about it …’
‘You read about it?’ I ask, stunned by her words. ‘What do you mean? Do you mean you planned it? Jesus Christ, Kathleen!’
‘No!’ She blinks at me, eyes wide before she casts her gaze downwards again. ‘Well, not really. I’d researched it but, you know, half-heartedly. It didn’t mean anything. I didn’t expect to … Well, I didn’t think I’d ever do it. I just wanted to know how, in case things got really bad for him.’
‘For him?’ Heidi snorts. ‘In case things got bad for him? What about the rest of us, Kathleen? Did you ever research how you could save us if things got really bad?’
Kathleen shakes her head. Brushes the tears from her eyes. What little trace of make-up she had been wearing has now been rubbed clear.
‘He was my brother,’ she says mournfully. ‘You can’t possibly understand. I’m not saying he was perfect. God knows he wasn’t. God knows he did some things that were unforgivable, but he was still my big brother. I still loved him. You can think that’s wrong all you want, if that’s what makes you happy …’
‘Nothing about this makes us happy,’ I tell her. ‘Nothing at all.’
I’m trying to take in everything that Kathleen is saying. To take in her twisted loyalty to Joe even though she knew what he was capable of. Even though she had moved hundreds of miles away, he still had this pull over her. She still felt compelled to come back to him in the end. She still loved him. She wanted to help him in her own way. In the end.
I think about my own relationship with him, how he retained that same pull over me, too. How he’d been able to summon me back into his life, too. That he had kept Heidi in his web all this time. Despite everything he’d done.
I find myself shaking. ‘Nothing at all about this makes sense. You loved him, you say, but you were the one who killed him. You can try to dress it up as a mercy killing if you want, but you murdered him.’
She winces at the word. Rubs her temples. Perhaps all this is giving her a headache. God knows my own head is starting to thump right now.
‘I never wanted him dead,’ she says eventually, the word ‘dead’ almost a whisper. ‘But I’d seen this before. This cancer. How it eats away at people. The death it gave my father.’ She shakes her head as if trying to shake away the memory. ‘You were so young at the time, Ciara, I doubt you even remember it. But it was horrific, and I didn’t – God, I just didn’t want to see Joe go through that. No matter what he’d done.
‘Heidi, you must understand? Your poor mother. You saw what cancer did to her. How it ate away at her. No one deserves that. If Joe had been an animal he’d have been put to sleep and spared his misery.’
‘He was an animal,’ Heidi spits. ‘And don’t dare bring my mother into this. There’s no comparison. She didn’t deserve her pain. Joe deserved every bit of his. Every last twinge.’
I sit beside Heidi. Rest my hand on hers to try to keep her calm so that Kathleen can say her piece. I need to understand why she did this.
‘No one deserves that pain,’ Kathleen bites. ‘I was trying to be compassionate. That was my intention. I didn’t think all this would happen.’ She gestures around the room. ‘I didn’t expect that the police would become involved. I thought – well, I thought I’d dealt with that side of things.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask her. How on earth had she ‘dealt with things’?
She takes a deep breath. ‘Dr Sweeney,’ she says.
I feel my breath catch in my throat. Dr Sweeney? Kind, old Dr Sweeney with the soft expression and the soothing voice? He had something to do with this? My head starts to spin. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, trying to steady myself, but I can hear Kathleen still talking.
‘You mustn’t think badly of him. He was trying to do the right thing. He’s a good man.’ There’s a hint of warmth, of emotion in her voice again. She wipes away another tear. ‘I’d spoken to him about how I didn’t want Joe to suffer, you know. I thought if I just … you know … helped him on his way. It wouldn’t be painless, but it wouldn’t be as bad as what was ahead of him.
‘Of course he told me that such things aren’t legal and that he couldn’t condone it or advise me on it. In fact, he urged me to be sensible. Told me palliative care had come on leaps and bounds since my father died, even since your mother died, Heidi.
‘I didn’t plan it, you know. But that night, Joe was in so much pain. He was scared. I suppose I got scared, too. Befo
re I even knew it, I’d done it.’ She glances at her hands as if she can’t quite believe what they were capable of.
‘When I called Dr Sweeney that night he knew as soon as he saw Joe that something had happened; that I’d done something. He asked me, when you were all out of the room. He asked me to tell him what I’d done, so I did. But he understood what you can’t seem to. That I was doing Joe a favour. That I was saving him from pain in the long run. That my intentions were good. I pleaded with Dr Sweeney not to say anything and, well, we were friends a long time ago and he agreed. He was only trying to help …’
‘Well, we have to tell the police this,’ I say softly. ‘You know that, don’t you, Kathleen?’
She looks at me and blinks as if the thought hasn’t even occurred to her. ‘I don’t think we do,’ she says.
‘Of course we do!’ Heidi replies, casting my hand off from hers, pointing a finger at Kathleen. ‘My husband is sitting in a police cell now for all we know. He has been beating himself up for causing Joe’s death when he did no such thing. He did nothing wrong.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Kathleen says and there is a dark glint in her eyes. The softness, the grief, is gone. The change in her tone shocks me. ‘If he’d just kept quiet. Don’t you see? The police had nothing to go on. Apart from the postmortem findings. There was nothing there to link this to any one of us.
‘It would’ve gone away in its own time, but no, Alex had to come forth with some big bleeding-heart confession and risk it all. I can’t go to jail,’ she says, her voice cracking. ‘I won’t go to jail. I was only trying to do the right thing!’
‘If you’re really interested in doing the right thing, you’ll tell the police. You’ll not let anyone else suffer because of your actions,’ Heidi says.
‘I’ve already told you, I’m not contacting the police. Not for you, or Alex, or anyone. My plan is to go back to England in a couple of days and I’m not going to change that.’
I can hardly believe what she’s saying. How she is so cold. Maybe she is more like her brother than I ever thought before.
‘You really think it’s as easy as that?’ I ask her. ‘That we’ll just let you go without telling the police? Come on, Kathleen. You’re not a stupid woman!’
‘Yes, I do think you’re going to let me, because at the end of the day, it will just be your word against mine, won’t it? And neither of you come across as particularly stable these days. Neither of you showed an ounce of compassion towards that man. You’d more reason to want him dead than I did. Everyone knew you both hated him.’
‘We’ll tell them what he did!’ Heidi says. ‘All of it. All the details.’
‘Don’t you think they’ll wonder why you didn’t tell anyone before now? Come on! Heidi, you were still visiting him and you want the police to believe he abused you? And as for you, Ciara, you didn’t even tell your mother. So tell them if you want. It will just make you both look even more like liars.’ She pauses. ‘In fact, maybe you’ve been lying all along. You made that poor man write those words. Those horrible, horrible words.’
‘How dare you!’ Heidi shouts and she is on her feet, storming towards Kathleen, and I have to stand up, grab her and pull her back, even though I’d love to reach for her myself.
How dare Kathleen suggest we’re lying!
‘I’m just fighting my corner,’ she says. ‘Because out of all us, I’m the one person who deserves to go to jail least of all. I loved him.’
‘So much so that you moved away years ago and never came back?’ Heidi sniffs.
Kathleen shakes her head. ‘I kept in touch. He knew where I was when he needed me. He knew I’d come to him when he was sick and I did. And when I did, I showed him compassion. I showed him I loved him. I showed him I forgave him.’
Her words are fast, tripping over one another. She’s spiralling now. She must realise how ridiculous she’s being. She must realise that she can’t get away from this, no matter her threats or her plans.
‘That’s the greatest gift you can give someone, you know. Forgiveness. It’s what people deserve, when they’re dying. Even the bad people. The people who make mistakes. They deserve to die in peace. I gave him that. I let him know. I let him know he was forgiven.’
‘What did you ever have to forgive him for?’ Heidi snorts. ‘You barely even knew him. You stayed away for so long …’
She says the words and time slows. I see the look on Kathleen’s face. I see it and I wonder how I ever missed it.
Was I so far in denial of my own pain that I couldn’t see it written all over someone else’s face? I’d missed it with Heidi … and now …
Kathleen pales, struggles to compose her face again. She knows she’s said too much. She’s flustered. Her mouth opens and closes, but she isn’t saying anything.
‘Oh my God …’ is all I can say and she flashes me a look. A look that pleads with me not to say any more. If we don’t say it out loud it isn’t real.
A small cry comes from upstairs. Lily must be waking up. I see the panic on Heidi’s face.
‘I need to get to Lily,’ she says. ‘She’s crying.’
Kathleen looks at her. Steps to one side.
‘You can go,’ she says, ‘but you’re not taking your bag with you.’
‘Why can’t I bring my bag?’ Heidi asks. ‘Lily might need changing.’
‘Then take what you need from it up to her. You’re not taking your bag. Do you think I’d risk you calling the police?’
‘I want to look after my daughter,’ Heidi says, but she doesn’t argue further.
She simply pulls out a nappy and wipes from her bag and, with a tilt of her head that seems to ask if I’m okay with her going, she heads towards the stairs.
I nod at her. I’m quite looking forward to getting Kathleen on my own, although my stomach is churning now. How many people did he hurt? How many lives did he destroy?
How many people had he condemned to live a life of shame and self-blame and fucked-up relationships, mental and emotional scars, a fear of intimacy? Nightmares and self-medicating, distrust and hurt.
He has left innocent people, innocent girls, broken and sullied in his wake.
I don’t want to be ashamed or scared any more. It has gone on too long. This has to stop. Kathleen needs to know it has to stop.
She is pacing the room now. Agitated. For all her bluff and blunder she knows that she can’t really expect to walk away from this.
I look at her, how she looks older than her years. How any vibrancy I remember in her from my childhood is long gone and I wonder how I never noticed it before. It’s enough to make tears spring to my eyes once again.
‘Kathleen,’ I say, my voice soft.
She keeps walking.
‘Kathleen,’ I say, a little louder this time.
She looks at me, her eyes filled with fear. I take her by the wrists, forcing her to stop pacing, forcing her to look me in the eye.
‘Did he do this to you, too? When you were small? You can tell me, you know. You can tell Heidi. You don’t have to protect him any more.’
Her eyes widen and she pulls her arms sharply away from me before raising her hand and slapping me squarely across my right cheek with a force so strong I stumble.
‘Don’t you ever open your filthy mouth to say that again,’ she hisses. ‘How dare you!’
I put my hand to my cheek, feel the heat as blood rushes to my skin, colouring my face. It stings, but not as much as her words.
‘I’m only trying to help. If the police know, they’ll understand. They’ll help.’
‘You can help by keeping your twisted lies to yourself. I don’t know where we went wrong with you, Ciara, but if there is any deviant in this family it’s you! I don’t know how you did it,’ she spits at me, ‘you and that vindictive bitch upstairs. You want everyone to be as sordid and sick as you? Well, I’m sorry, you’re wrong. He never touched me. It was a mercy killing, because I loved him. You couldn’t poss
ibly understand. You have never loved anyone but yourself.’
She is screaming and I can see her come at me again. She’s small, no more than five foot four at most, but she is strong and before I know it I’m being pushed backwards, losing my footing and slipping, my head banging off the hard wood floor so hard that I bite my tongue. I taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth, try to scramble backwards to get away or get to my feet or just to shield myself from her.
She pulls a book from the bookcase, a thick, heavy hardback, and throws it at me. The sharp edges of the spine hit me right in the stomach, making me retch, the effort sending blood spraying from my mouth on the floor. I can’t speak as I curl up and feel another book land and another … and another. And all the while Kathleen is ranting. No, she’s not ranting, she’s praying. The Hail Mary over and over again.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Heidi
Now
I’m shaking as I feed Lily, finding no comfort at all from the soft warmth of her body.
Can she really make the police believe her? Can she really make it look like Ciara and I could have been behind it all? That we are horrible people? Maybe, I think, with a sinking sensation, we are horrible people. Maybe all those thoughts that come to me in the middle of the night – which have come to me in the middle of the night ever since the first time he hurt me – maybe they represent the truth?
I close my eyes, hold my daughter close to me. Think about her innocence. No, I was just a child. As innocent as Lily is now.
The sound of shouting downstairs jolts me back into reality. Then the sound of a thud, and another and another. I can hear Kathleen’s voice, raised, ranting. But I can’t hear Ciara. A shiver runs through me as I lay Lily gently back on the bed, her eyes now heavy with sleep, her mouth milky.
