Mary, Mary

by Julie Parsons

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want a solicitor to be present? If you don’t have one of your own we can arrange for a duty solicitor to be assigned to you.’

  Again the shake of the head.

  Next would be fingerprints and photographs, then into a cell. Not for long. And not for any particular reason. Just to shake him up a bit. Show him that they had the power, while he was in their custody, to move him from place to place, take him into one room, and then into another. Exercise the same kind of physical control that mothers have over helpless infants. Simple things, really, but they worked. Having to ask to go to the toilet. Sometimes just leaving someone for half an hour or so, after the request, could have magical effects. Interesting to watch the realization that you are no longer in control. Of course, most of the guys who came through that door in handcuffs knew all about their little games. They’d played them so many times before. But a novice like Jimmy Fitzsimons? He wouldn’t be able to handle it so well, even if he had raped, tortured and murdered that poor girl. Classic bullying stuff, really. Surround him with a few guards standing over six foot, weighing over sixteen stone each, with fists the size of sledgehammers. And then wait.

  He sent Finney and Lynch in first. The rules said that no more than four guards could be present during the interview and no more than two could question the arrested person. So he put a couple of heavies in as well. Just for decoration.

  The morning passed slowly. It would be a long day. Finney would be going through the routine stuff. Asking him about himself and his job. Asking him about the girl, where he met her, what they did, when he last saw her. There’d be a lot of silences. Stopping and starting. Finney would get up and walk around the room keeping eye contact, drawing him into his orbit. They’d play a few games. Guards would come in with ‘messages’. They’d call him or Lynch over to the door, looking at Fitzsimons as they whispered urgently. Lynch would take copious notes. Then after two hours of this they’d stop. Offer him tea or coffee, leave him with the uniform while they all took a break.

  Then they’d go back in. And start all over again.

  The clock on the wall said thirteen-oh-seven. Exactly two hours since Finney had put his hand on him. McLoughlin would let him carry on by himself for a while longer. They weren’t in any hurry. They had until eleven-oh-seven that night. Plenty of time.

  ‘How’s it going, Inspector?’ Sergeant Daly stopped by his desk. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. And for you?’

  Daly nodded. ‘Yeah, so far. Finney can be a bit – what’s the expression I’m looking for?’

  ‘Hot-headed? Volatile?’

  Daly smiled. ‘Ambitious I think was the word I wanted. Something like that. But I’ll keep my eye on him.’

  Lunchtime. Fitzsimons was taken back to a cell. Food was given to him on a tray. He was cuffed for the short walk from the interview room. McLoughlin looked through the peephole. He was sitting on the bed. The tray was on the floor beside him. He had a blank, shocked expression on his pale pretty face. McLoughlin joined Finney and Lynch in the canteen. Egg and chips, and white sliced loaf. He buttered his bread, and stuck a corner of the crust into the yolk of the egg.

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘He did it, all right.’

  ‘Yeah? Why do you say that?’

  ‘He keeps on remembering. All the time.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘There’s this expression he gets on his face, every time we mention her name. Isn’t that right, Bert? His lips move. His eyes flicker from side to side. It’s as if he’s replaying it all over and over again.’

  ‘But has he said anything?’

  ‘Nothing much. Still sticking to his story. He met her a few weeks ago. She came home with him on the Saturday night, and she stayed until the Wednesday morning. Then she left. He wasn’t expecting to see her again. And when he heard she was dead he got scared.’

  The afternoon passed. Slowly. Around them the normal routine of the Swan’s Nest station carried on. People came in and out, reporting petty crimes, getting their passport forms signed, paying traffic fines.

  Three o’clock, four o’clock, five o’clock. Superintendent Finucane signed the order to extend the interview period for a further six hours. Teatime came and went. Again the same routine. Fitzsimons to a cell. Finney and Lynch to the canteen.

  At eight in the evening he went and stood outside the interview room. He could hear shouting. He looked through the peephole. Finney was standing over Fitzsimons, facing the door. His face was dark red. Beneath him Fitzsimons cowered, pale, his hands screwed up in front of his face. McLoughlin knocked on the door, then opened it slowly.

  The small windowless room stank. Nervous sweat, fear, anger.

  ‘Time to take a break, I think,’ he said.

  He got them to set up the projector. He would use the room’s blank walls as his screen. He was all ready by the time they brought Fitzsimons back into the room. He held out his hand. Fitzsimons put his into it, mechanically. He was very pale. He looked as if he had been crying.

  ‘Shall we begin?’ McLoughlin said. ‘Dave, the lights, please.’

  Mary’s naked body was suddenly in the room with them. Huge, enlarged, sprawled across the wall. Near enough to reach out and touch. He pushed the button. The carousel of slides clicked, shuffled and moved. McLoughlin began. He described all her injuries, using the medical terms. How they had happened. What kind of force had been used. He moved on to the close-ups. Breasts, thighs, genitals, wrists, ankles, stomach. Finally face. He watched Fitzsimons in the projector’s ghostly glow. He looked as if he might faint. McLoughlin switched off the projector. The room was dark. He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘tell us about yourself, Jimmy.’ There was silence. McLoughlin took out a cigar and fumbled in his pocket for a box of matches. He lit one slowly. The scrape of the phosphorus head along the crystals was loud in the sudden quiet. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. The flame flared. Fitzsimons was looking at him. With apprehension. He waited. Still silence. That wasn’t a problem. He could wait. He was better at it than most people. He’d had plenty of practice. Most people, ordinary people, couldn’t handle the vacuum. A black hole of guilt beckoned. As they knelt, terrified, on the edge, it sucked them deep inside. He’d seen it before. The desire to fill in the empty spaces, with lies, bumbling explanations, raw lists of events, litanies of excuses. Anything to occupy the yawning gap with the sound of a voice, the semblance of human contact.

  ‘Shall we look at the slides again, Jimmy?’ He picked up the control button.

  The blond head shook.

  ‘Why? Don’t you like them? Shocking, aren’t they? When you see what one human being can do to another. But, of course, you know a lot about that, don’t you, Jimmy? You’ve done it more than once.’ He turned towards Finney. ‘Did you tell him, Dave, about the nice girl Jenny Adamson? The photography teacher.’ He turned back to Fitzsimons. ‘She had a lot to say about you, and the time you spent together. Just tell me, Jimmy, you must have had a good time with that girl. You really made a mess of her. Do you know, it took her three weeks before she could walk without pain? Three weeks. And you did that. All by yourself. No weapons, no instruments, no implements, just your hands and your feet and your fists and your prick. That was all it took to reduce her, and her a clever woman, degrees and diplomas, certificates all over the wall, to a frightened, snivelling piece of dirt on the floor in front of you. Incredible, isn’t it? You don’t need a gun or a knife or even a length of rope. You just need you.’

  He paused and got up. He fiddled with the projector, adjusting the focus, then began to go through the slides again.

  ‘You know, she told us you were a good photographer. Excellent, were her words. Said you could be a professional, instead of driving rich Yanks around the countryside. Your mother said pretty much the same thing. You could have been brilliant at school. A photographic memory. There’s
that word again. Funny how it keeps on cropping up, isn’t it?’

  ‘My mother,’ Jimmy sat up. ‘You spoke to my mother?’

  ‘Of course we did, and your little sister Molly, lovely girl. Such a shame. And you also spoke to Tina, didn’t you, Dave? Your big sister Tina. Tell Jimmy, Dave, how you got on with Tina.’

  ‘Great, fantastic. She’s a gorgeous woman, your big sister Tina.’

  And then he was on the floor, Fitzsimons on top of him, holding his head between his hands and banging it again and again and again, hard down on the carpet tiles. Screaming, swearing, the words falling out of his mouth like the saliva spattered across Finney’s face.

  They dragged him off, handcuffing him, pulling him away, the cuffs digging into his wrists. Lynch forced him back down into the chair, while McLoughlin helped Dave to his feet, wiping his face with his handkerchief.

  ‘So that got you going, you little bastard. ’Cause that’s what you are, aren’t you? A dirty little bastard. Your sister’s brat. And who was your father, eh? Some snot-nosed kid with acne, banging her in the bicycle shed after school, or in the back row of the pictures on Saturday afternoon? Fourteen she was when she had you. Can you imagine a fourteen-year-old? And you coming out between those fat little thighs, kind of like your little sister, isn’t that right, Jimmy?’

  McLoughlin flicked through the slides again, finishing on a close-up of Mary’s battered face. ‘Did anyone ever hit you like that, when you were a kid? Your father maybe, or should I say your grandfather? Or maybe he was both? Father and grandfather, now wouldn’t that be something? What do you think, Jimmy? That little girl with her white thighs and her little tits, and that big man, and I’ve met him and he’s big, pushing himself down on her, hurting her, like you hurt Jenny and young Mary.’

  Jimmy whimpered, his face milk-white in the projector’s glow. Tears welled up and spilled down. He tried to move his arms but they were pinned behind his back. He struggled, whimpering, pulling against the cuffs.

  ‘That’s right, Jimmy. Handcuffs hurt, don’t they? Did you see Mary Mitchell’s wrists after you took the handcuffs off her, did you? Let’s look,’ and he flicked again through the slides until her wrists and hands were displayed, huge, deep red weals where the metal had cut through the skin.

  Jimmy sobbed and screamed. ‘I want my mother. Help, help. I want someone. Please help me.’

  Lynch looked at McLoughlin. He shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

  ‘It’s too late for that, Jimmy. She can’t help you now. We’re the only ones who can do that. You’ve got to tell us. What you did. How it happened. Tell us. Now.’

  He handed him over to Finney. Let him take the statement. Finney wanted that. And McLoughlin felt he owed him. He went to his desk and phoned the DPP’s office. Explained the situation. A statement was being taken. They would have enough to charge him. He looked at his watch. Twenty-two fifteen. Fitzsimons’s detention would cease at precisely twenty-three-oh-seven. Twelve hours from the time he was arrested. But Finney knew that too. He’d make sure that everything was signed, sealed and delivered in time.

  He switched off the lights as he left the office. Sal Daly was off duty. But Peter Manning, who’d taken over from him, would keep the records. Check the prisoner. Make sure the station doctor was called to look at the bruises on his wrists and Finney’s cut eye. It would all be written down. The accused would be charged with false imprisonment, rape and murder. A good day’s work by all accounts.

  30

  What would she do now? Now that her mother was dead, her daughter was dead, her father was dead.

  She sat beside Catherine’s hospital bed. It was early morning. She had watched the dawn come to life as her mother’s life had ended, the sky lightening from black to grey to pink to pale blue. She had listened to the changing sounds outside. The night’s empty silence had been filled with birdsong, with blackbirds, thrushes, sparrows, robins, the everyday accompaniment to the routines and rhythms of suburbia.

  She had practised listening, shifting her awareness from the birds outside to her mother’s slow, soft breaths. Sometimes she thought her breathing had stopped. But then she would breathe again, once or maybe twice. Cheyne-Stoking it was called. She remembered the term. Intermittent breathing every couple of minutes. The heart still beats, but gradually the brain is starved of oxygen. She took Catherine’s wrist and felt her pulse. It fluttered and stopped, then fluttered again. She looked at her face. Her skin was waxy, her features indistinct, as if someone had drawn a hand down and across, smearing them while they were still being formed. She both was and was not the mother she had always known.

  She had still been conscious when Margaret had arrived back at the hospital. They had increased her dose of morphine. She was in no pain now.

  ‘Is that you, Margaret?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Mother, it’s me.’

  ‘And is Daddy with you?’

  ‘No, Mother, but he’s not far away.’

  Her mother turned her face towards the white wall and closed her eyes. Later she opened them suddenly and said, ‘Margaret, I love you. I’ve always loved you.’ And she began to cry, pathetic sobs shaking her wizened upper body. Margaret leaned over her, smoothing the fine hair back from her forehead, and murmuring endearments until she lapsed back into unconsciousness. Was she sleeping? She watched the sheet over her chest. Was it moving? She held her hand in front of her nose? Could she feel the slightest feather of breath?

  She wanted to ask her so many things. She knew so little, she realized now. She thought of the photograph albums. All those pictures of John, his family, his friends. And none of Catherine. She never spoke of her mother or father. She had no brothers or sisters. She had appeared, so it seemed, in John’s office one day. A new secretary, a smart young woman with a shorthand notebook. And she had got him, made him fall in love with her. Married the most eligible of them all, with his own car and his own house in Monkstown.

  ‘Why did you never talk to me, Mummy, why did you never tell me?’ Margaret whispered the words into her ear. But there was no response. She remembered watching her putting on her makeup. The daily ritual. Sitting at her dressing table in her frilly nightgown, her legs crossed, one small foot in a pink satin slipper, swinging. I must have been sick, thought Margaret. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been there. Usually Catherine didn’t get up until Daddy and I had left the house in the mornings. But I remember. First the foundation, Elizabeth Arden, squeezed from the tube, and smoothed from the base of the neck up and over the delicate bones of her face. Then the powder from the big round box, with the fluffy puff. Then the eyes, the delicate lining of the upper lid with black, the pencilling in of the eyebrows, and the mascara on the tips of the lashes. And finally, the finishing touch, the lips, the careful outlining in the favourite colour of the day, coral, or peach, sometimes crimson. Then the filling in with broad strokes, and the bringing together of the upper and the lower lips in a narcissistic kiss to the mirror.

  ‘Do that to me, Mummy, please,’ she had asked. But Catherine had picked her up, and taken her back to her own room, closing the door firmly behind her.

  She reached across the bed and took hold of her right hand. She smoothed the wrinkled skin with her fingers, and held it against her cheek. She wanted to cry but she had no tears left. All gone, she thought, as she placed Catherine’s hand back down on the white sheet. She looked at her own wrist, at the strip of plaited cloth wrapped around it. One of the nurses had commented.

  ‘It’s a friendship bracelet, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘One of my kids has one. Her best friend gave it to her. Isn’t the idea that you wear it until it drops off of its own accord? Something like that, anyway.’

  She sat and watched until there were no more sighs, no more sudden gasps. Then she stood up. I will pronounce her dead, she thought. My final act as her daughter. She lifted a slack eyelid. Catherine’s pupils were fixed and dilated. She picked up the frail wrist, and placed her fingers on the blue
tracks of the veins. She felt no pulse against her skin. She held her pocket mirror up to the pinched nostrils. No breath clouded its cold surface.

  She sat beside the bed until they came to take her away. She held the pocket mirror in front of her own face, marking the lines, the wrinkles, the cruel sagging of the skin. She had nothing more to say, nothing more to give. There will be no more of us, she thought. Mary gone. Her baby gone too. Only me. On my own.

  She continued to sit on the hard upright chair as they stripped the bed of its soiled linen, mopped the floor around her feet, wiped away every trace of the woman who had died there. Then she got up, and walked to the window. The hospital was surrounded by gardens, filled with huge old trees, oak, ash, chestnut, and in one corner a grass tennis court. Two men and two women were playing a game of mixed doubles. She watched their strong young bodies as they dashed from side to side, laughing and calling out to each other. And she felt herself ageing, her muscles wasting and sagging, her bones thinning, her hair and skin losing its tone, its shine, its elasticity.

  I am dead, she thought. All that is left is to bury me. And then a smell, familiar, laden with memory. Elderflower water, light and pretty but with an underlying tartness. She looked around. Mary was standing beside her. Pale, but smiling, her eyes bright and knowing.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mummy,’ she said, ‘you’ll be all right.’ And she pulled Margaret’s head onto her shoulder, and stood beside her, one arm holding her close, one hand on her shoulder, the other hand stroking her cheeks, wiping the tears away as they welled up out of her eyes and trickled slowly down her face.