by Mark Roberts
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Did you love the attention you got when you were in a wheelchair?’
‘I – I don’t remember.’
‘Did you want people to feel sorry for you?’
‘No.’
‘Or was it just another layer of disguise?’
‘No. One moment I could walk. One moment I couldn’t walk. Life has fine lines.’
Norma Maguire looked up at Clay and she was reminded of a crab peering from the shadows of its shell.
‘There’s a psychiatrist coming to see you. To make an initial assessment of your mental state. The psychiatrist you see tonight will be the first of many to talk to you in the months leading up to your trial.’
‘I’m not mad.’
‘I know you’re not mad. You’re a cold, calculating killer who knew exactly what was going on and exactly what you were doing. You were envious of those young women and took their skins because you couldn’t bear their beauty in the middle of your view of your own ugliness.
‘You paraded around in their skins so you could drive your hostages into mental collapse. Another layer of disguise. You’re evil. You’re sadistic. But you’re not mad, and that’s the message I’ll hammer home to every shrink who asks me.’
‘Say something?’ said Norma Maguire to her solicitor.
‘Continue being as open and honest as you can be.’
The silence was as deep as it was dark.
‘Can you hear that?’ asked Norma Maguire.
‘The wind?’ asked Clay.
‘The water beneath the wind. The waters where the women went. The lost and lonely women with no faces. The water women. And, so, off she floats to nowhere.’
Norma Maguire looked at Clay and there was a new air about her: she looked like she had left a precious heirloom in a public bathroom and had just returned to find it gone.
‘What are you thinking, Norma?’ asked Clay.
‘I see it now. I see it all,’ said Norma Maguire, fixing her gaze on Clay. ‘I am lost, aren’t I?’
‘You’ve got a lot to face and much to go through in the next year. You need to take full responsibility for your part in the terrible crimes you’ve committed. This involves telling the truth.’
‘Where do you want me to start?’
‘Start at the beginning and don’t leave out anything,’ said Clay.
Norma Maguire nodded and whispered, ‘The truth, the brutal, ugly truth?’
‘Yes,’ said Clay.
‘Look at me!’
Clay looked at her and was convinced of one thing: if Death had a face, it would certainly look like the woman facing her.
‘My name is Norma Maguire and I am a killer.’ She smiled at Clay. ‘I have felt the urge to kill since I was three years old.’
A nostalgic smile formed on her face.
‘It was a compulsion I never tried to resist. Three years old, yes. What a happy summer’s day it was when I found a sparrow with a broken wing in my mother’s back garden.’
The rain picked up a gear and hammered the building.
‘I remember. I folded it in my little hands. I could see its eyes peeping between my fingers. I could feel its heart beating against the palms of my hands. I went looking for a stone.’
137
8.29 pm
‘I liked the way your hair used to be,’ said Philip. ‘Why did you change it to blonde?’
Over her son’s shoulder, Eve Clay caught sight of herself in the tall mirror in the hallway of her home. She looked at the blonde hair that hung down from the woollen hat she wore, concealing her bandages from her son.
‘Do you remember when you started putting gel on your hair, Philip? You were curious to see what you’d look like. It was a bit of that…’ She hugged him a little bit tighter. ‘But guess what? Don’t tell anyone. I did it to trick a baddie.’
‘Did it work?’
‘It helped, I think.’
Eve Clay realised that the last time she’d seen her son, she’d had her own natural colour, brunette.
Philip stepped out of the embrace and looked closely at his mother’s face and hair.
‘It is you. But it isn’t you, Mum.’
‘Don’t worry, Philip. When you wake up in the morning, I’ll have dyed it back to my own colour and be one hundred per cent me.’
The rattle of glasses came their way from the kitchen.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Eve Clay.
Philip smiled at her.
‘A bit of a late night, Mum.’
Philip wandered into the front room, chuckling.
‘Thomas?’ she asked, as her husband walked into the hall carrying a tray with a bottle of red wine, two glasses and a can of Vimto.
‘Welcome home, Eve,’ said Thomas.
‘You’ve read my mind. Again!’
Eve Clay sat on the end of the sofa and watched Philip crouch by the gas fire.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He stuck his hand into the mechanism at the base of the fire.
‘Putting the fire on.’
She looked at her husband as he poured wine into two glasses and dropped a straw into the can of Vimto.
Philip turned his hand and after a series of clicks, flames shot up from the artificial coals.
‘How long’s this been going on for?’ asked Eve.
Philip looked at his father.
‘A week ago, Dad?’
‘Yeah, about then,’ replied Thomas.
‘You’ll be telling me you’re doing online banking next!’
‘Don’t be silly, Mum. I haven’t got a bank account. Yet. Unless you want to open one for me?’
Philip sat on the sofa in the space between his parents and Eve took his hand.
‘So, how was your day, Mum?’
A thousand pictures flashed through her in a second as she looked into the flames.
‘Well… it most certainly was a day.’
She dismissed most of the images that had invaded her head and seized on the picture of Margaret Christie’s face when she saw her daughter in Trinity Road police station.
Eve raised a glass of wine and said, ‘Cheers.’
She clinked against Philip’s can of Vimto and her husband’s glass.
Tiredness came over her in a sudden wave. She sipped her wine, placed it down on the tray and looked at her son. She wrapped her arms around him and was glad to be alive.
In her mind, Eve Clay stepped back and grabbed the moment with all her being. She looked at her husband and son and made an indelible memory to store in her heart against the harsh things that lay around the next crooked corner.
She felt the weight of Philip as he sat on her lap, his arms wrapped around her neck, and wished that the world would be kind to him.
Thomas shifted along the sofa and sealed the three of them in a single embrace.
‘Whatever happens next,’ said Eve, ‘we’ve already won, boys. We’ve won big time.’
About the Author
mark roberts was born and raised in Liverpool, and was educated at St Francis Xavier’s College and Liverpool Hope University. He was a teacher for twenty years and for the past seventeen years has worked with children with severe learning difficulties. He is the author of What She Saw, which was longlisted for a CWA Gold Dagger.
An Invitation from the Publisher
We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join us at www.headofzeus.com and become part of our community of book-lovers.
We will keep you up to date with our latest books, author blogs, special previews, tempting offers, chances to win signed editions and much more.
Get in touch: [email protected]
www.headofzeus.com
@headofzeus
@HoZ_Books
Head of Zeus Books
Death
