Mary, Mary

by Julie Parsons

  McLoughlin shifted from foot to foot. His head was aching and he felt desperately sick from last night’s excesses, but at least today his feet weren’t wet. The weather had changed again. Outside the sun shone in a clear blue sky, washed clean by yesterday’s downpour. He closed his eyes and listened as the prosecuting counsel began to set the scene, to tell the jury the story of the crime. He was creating, McLoughlin knew, nothing less than a complete, self-contained world in which the guilt or innocence of the accused would be decided. From now on there would be nothing more or less than this reality, shaped from a mass of circumstances, coincidence and random events by the prosecution and the defence. It was no longer a question of establishing the truth of what had happened. Truth in these circumstances would be a bonus. Instead, the court would determine the details of this world it was creating, and the evidence that it would allow itself to see or to use. He looked up at the skylight and back down again to the panelled doors which led out of the court. The one to the left of the judge led up the private staircase to his chambers. The one to his right to the jury room. Behind McLoughlin, glass doors opened onto the Round Hall. He closed his eyes and imagined. A cube made of stone and plaster, sealed, floating. A time and space machine. And inside would be brought to life those eight days, six months ago, when Mary Mitchell died.

  ‘Let us go back,’ Douglas said, standing with one polished shoe up on the bench in front of him, ‘to Sunday, the thirteenth of August nineteen ninety-five. You may remember it, you may not. I can tell you,’ and he glanced down at his notes, ‘that it was a hot day, like so many days in that extraordinary summer. A man called Barney Morrison was walking his springer spaniel along the bank of the Grand Canal, just past the bridge at Hazel Hatch. This was a favourite walk of his, especially early in the morning between seven thirty and eight, when he could let the dog have a ramble and a swim. He was throwing a stick for the dog, a piece of elder I do believe, throwing it into the water and the dog was jumping in and swimming out for the stick. But this time when he threw the stick the dog didn’t come back. So Mr Morrison went over to the bank to see what the dog was up to. He called him and he called him, and eventually the dog came, and he had something in his teeth. And when Mr Morrison managed to prise the dog’s mouth open he found that it was a piece of black plastic sack, and a lock of black hair. And when he looked over the bank where the dog had been swimming, he found wrapped in plastic the body of Mary Mitchell, caught in the submerged branches of an ash tree.

  ‘Now.’ He stopped and drank from his cut-glass tumbler. ‘Let us go back to the previous Sunday, the sixth of August, the Sunday of the bank holiday weekend. A woman phones the Garda station in Dun Laoghaire. She says that her daughter is missing. She spends the next week in agony until she is told at twelve noon a week later that a body has been found. And it was the body of her daughter, Mary. Let me tell you something about this young woman.’

  McLoughlin looked around the court. The barrister’s voice rose and fell. Words like beautiful, talented, innocent hung in the air, like bright points of light. He looked at the faces of the jury, rapt now, caught by the simple power of the prosecutor’s narrative. He looked at the face of the accused. He had the expression which all in his position hold, fixed, in place. Impassive, unresponsive, as if unconcerned, his hands clasped in front of him, his shoulders erect. He looked at the faces of the court officials. The jury-keeper’s arms were folded across his navy blue sweater, obscuring the green harp embroidered over his left breast. The registrar sat equally still, his papers a neat pile in front of him, with the stenographer beside him, her eyes fixed on whoever was speaking, her body twisted away from the computer keyboard across which her hands travelled with complete certainty.

  ‘I will not,’ continued the prosecutor, ‘describe in detail, at this time, the injuries this young woman received. Expert witnesses will give evidence as to their nature, and you will see photographs which will demonstrate to you unequivocally the pain that she suffered, both physical and psychological, and the manner of the injuries which caused her death. But I will say that the prosecution case asserts and intends to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this was a murder which was executed with great attention to detail. This was not a crime of passion. This was not manslaughter. This was murder. It is the prosecution’s contention that young, pretty, talented, innocent Mary Mitchell was imprisoned against her will, was raped, then brutally beaten about the head in such a way that there can be no doubt as to the intention of the accused. He intended to murder her.’

  His voice had risen, slowly and steadily. It filled the room, blocking out every other stray, distracting thought. He paused again, and shuffled through his papers and extracted a single sheet from the pile. He put on his half-glasses and peered for some moments at what was written on it. He took off his glasses again and twirled them in his fingers as he continued.

  ‘Let me define murder for you.’ He paused, cleared his throat and let his gaze travel along the front row of the jury. ‘ “Where a person kills another unlawfully, the killing shall not be murder unless the accused intended to kill, or cause serious injury to, some person, whether the person is actually killed or not.” He paused again. There was silence. And he continued, ‘and furthermore “The accused person shall be presumed to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his conduct.”

  ‘You hear that, do you?’ He looked up at the jury, as if questioning each and every one of its twelve members. ‘The accused person shall be presumed to have intended the natural and probable consequences of his conduct. In other words, if I hit a man over the head with a hammer I can be pretty certain what will happen to him, and if I smash my fist into the temple of a young woman, smaller and slighter than I am, after having starved her, beaten her, raped her vaginally and anally, burned her thighs and genitals with cigarette ends, slashed her breasts with a knife, I think I can also be fairly sure what the consequence of those actions will be. And if, having done these things to her I don’t put her in my car and drive her to a hospital to get medical attention for her, to stop the bleeding of the ruptured blood vessels in her brain, then I think I can also be fairly sure of the consequence of my actions. Because if the accused, Mr Fitzsimons, had taken that course of action Mary Mitchell might now be alive and well, and not lying in a quiet corner of Mount Jerome cemetery.

  ‘And now,’ he paused and sipped from his glass again, ‘before the prosecution begins to call its witnesses may I remind the jury again of the presumption of innocence. The accused is innocent until the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt. And finally, may I point out to you that there is no obligation on the accused to give evidence, no obligation on the accused to give any explanation whatsoever of his actions. He can and may remain silent if he so wishes, and no inference whatsoever may be read into this silence. He is innocent until proven guilty.’

  He sat. The courtroom stirred and buzzed. Like the bee-loud glade, thought McLoughlin, as he stretched and eased out his legs. Or the intermission in a very long film, Gone With the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia. Time for people to go to the toilet or have a smoke. Although there were more people coming into this trial than leaving it. Throughout the prosecution’s opening statement a steady stream of women, wigs and gowns framing and emphasizing their youth, had entered and lounged discreetly against the wall, listening intently to the way in which their learned friend, the senior counsel, had framed his opening remarks. Learning through observation, highly commendable, thought McLoughlin. Ambition leaping the gender divide or whatever they called it these days.

  The prosecution’s junior counsel, a small woman, dark hair hidden nun-like beneath her wig, stood and called the first witness. McLoughlin stretched again, folding his arms at the elbows behind his head, and twisting it from side to side. This was where it began, the establishing of what was called the chain of evidence. Each link attached inextricably to the next. He had often thought that a jigsaw puzzle was a better metaphor
for what happened in court. The prosecution calls their witnesses so that each piece dovetails snugly with the next piece. No jagged edges, no rough sides, no gaping holes. And eventually the picture is clear and unmistakable. A crime has been committed. These are the details and this is the person or persons who did it. It was quite different from the process of detection. That was more like one of those 3D pictures. At first when you look at it you can see nothing but a blurred mass of colours and shapes. So you look and you look. You hold it this way and that. You narrow your eyes. You close them and open them again. And suddenly the solution is there. In front of you. Clear as day. Standing out from the background. And you can’t understand how you haven’t been able to see it all along.

  The first four witnesses were the kids with whom Mary had spent that Saturday evening. Each in turn stated their name and took the oath, their light middle-class accents lost in the court room. One of them, the boy, fiddled with the microphone, making it howl. The registrar leaned over to adjust it again, and it fell over, bouncing across the floor. Everyone laughed with nervous relief. They each described that night. Who they’d met, what they’d said. They talked about Mary. She was fine. She was grand. She was in good form. She was drinking Malibu and pineapple. Then she left. Did she seem apprehensive, anxious, worried, frightened? Each in turn said no, she didn’t. And in each instance the defence counsel declined to cross-examine.

  An old man shuffled to the stand. He stated his name. He took the oath, the Bible shaking in his right hand. The junior counsel asked him to describe what he was doing on the morning of Sunday, 13 August. He began hesitantly, but soon his voice was strong and clear. McLoughlin watched the way the old man’s eyes sparkled and his cheeks flushed as he told his story. The words fell out of him with practised ease. How many pints had been bought for him at his local as he spun out the drama? How many times had his children and grandchildren put up with his sputum-filled cough, just to hear the story again and again? Ah go on, Granda, tell us again. What did she look like? Did she smell? Was she green?

  He was excused from the box. Again, no questions from the defence. He shuffled back to his seat, but as he passed Margaret he stopped and wordlessly placed one gnarled hand on her shoulder. McLoughlin could see her recoil, remembering as he remembered the sight of the girl lying in the mortuary, the marks of the dog’s teeth visible in her white forehead.

  I hope she’s feeling strong, he thought. It’s going to get worse. It would be photographs next. Not that she would see them. But they would be shown to the judge, the jury, the defence and prosecution. There was an album, already prepared. He had watched Gerry Scully, one of the technical team, develop and print them, then order and label them, pushing them under their plastic covers the way you would with wedding or confirmation pictures. They were being handed round now. Senior counsel was taking Gerry through his evidence defining in tedious detail when and how the photographs had been taken, from what angle and what distance. There were fifteen prints in the album. The barrister dealt with them in order, asking Gerry to explain and describe each one. McLoughlin watched the faces of the jury as they turned the pages. He could see how their initial shock was quickly replaced by a controlled curiosity. They would get used to the colours and the shapes. They would objectify the girl and the parts of her body. They would listen to the descriptions of her injuries without nausea. She was the victim, but she would cease to exist as a real person. If she had survived, had been able to sit in the witness box and describe what had happened to her, her evidence would have been the most powerful single force in the trial. But because she could not speak for herself she could be created in whatever image the prosecution or defence wanted. He had seen it so many times before. The real Mary Mitchell would not come to life in this court room. A surrogate would be fashioned, a double, a doppelgänger, and this would inhabit the reports and the records, the memories of all who would sit here, listening, day after day until the case had ended.

  41

  Margaret watched the judge as he flicked through the album. Seated above the court, maroon velvet drapes behind him, the oak bench in front of him. His face was professionally expressionless. She looked at the jury. They were not so practised in the art of composure. She could see what they were seeing from the paling of the skin, the hand rushing to the mouth, the eyebrows tightening in concentration. And she looked at Patrick. He was sitting swivelled round, the album resting on the seat beside him, one arm trailing along the back of the seat, one hand drumming idly on the wood.

  Garda Gerry Scully, giving evidence, spoke of angles, distance, lenses used. It was almost as if he and the senior counsel were members of a camera club. He described the scene on the canal bank. His first photographs were taken before Mary’s body had been lifted out of the water. They showed, he explained, what was subsequently identified as the deceased’s head. He explained that her neck was wedged between the roots of a tree, which was growing out of the side of the canal. Margaret could imagine. The roots of the tree cradling her between them, catching her just beneath the ears and holding her up. Like one of the Arthur Rackham illustrations in the copy of Peter Pan she’d had when she was small. Trees with long fingers and wraith-like bodies. Eyes that stared from knot-holes and wisps of leaves trailing like straggling hair to the ground. When Mary had been little in New Zealand there was a series of books about two tree children called Hutu and Kawa, named after the pohutukawa, huge and graceful, growing on cliff tops, with its beautiful bright red flowers. She had loved them, the way her mother loved the Arthur Rackham pictures. And somehow Margaret liked the idea that it was a tree that had caught her, stopped her from falling to the mud and the dirt of the canal bottom. Kept her away from the thick black ooze.

  Douglas moved him on to the next series of pictures. These had been taken after the water in the canal had been lowered by two feet. They showed exactly how she was lying in her shroud of black plastic, the two concrete blocks attached to her by lengths of thick blue rope. One was tied round her neck, the other round her waist. There were close-ups of the blocks and their attachments. And more close-ups of the marks on her face.

  ‘Now,’ said Douglas, ‘explain these to us.’

  These, Scully said, had been taken when the body had been removed from the water. It had been laid out on the path that ran along beside the canal.

  ‘Here you can see clearly the kind of heavy tape that was used to bind the plastic bags together, and again the concrete blocks and the ropes.’

  ‘Finally,’ said Douglas, ‘the last set of photographs, taken where?’

  ‘In the morgue, prior to the post-mortem,’ replied Scully.

  ‘And what do they show?’

  ‘Bruising to her face, upper body, and thighs. They also show, particularly in the photograph labelled number twelve, that her hair has been cut.’

  ‘And the one labelled number thirteen, what does that show us?’

  ‘That her pubic hair appears to have been trimmed. It also shows a number of injuries, burns I believe they are, my lord, to her thighs.’

  ‘Quite, Garda Scully.’ Douglas looked again at him over the top of his glasses. ‘And finally photograph number fourteen?’

  ‘The area of her breasts and upper diaphragm, my lord. Lacerations and bruising, as you can see.’

  Margaret looked at Patrick again. He was flicking quickly through the pages. He glanced up and around him for a moment then turned back to the splashes of colour in front of him. He had seen, she knew, many photographs like these. He had told her how, in the beginning, his stomach had turned when he had read and seen the evidence of crimes that men he was defending were alleged to have committed.

  ‘So, what do you do?’ she had asked him. ‘What do you do if you know they are guilty?’

  ‘Well,’ he replied carefully, ‘it depends on what you mean by know.’

  ‘Ah, come on, don’t get all philosophical with me.’

  ‘No, I’m not. What I mean is that your clien
ts tell you their side of the story. You don’t make decisions as to their guilt or innocence. Only the jury can do that. Of course you have to act on whatever it is they tell you. So if they tell you something prejudicial to their case you can’t hide it.’

  ‘But,’ she said, ‘they don’t.’

  ‘No, they don’t. And, anyway, there’s far too much presumption of guilt. Just because the guards have arrested someone, brought them in, questioned them, made sure they’re denied bail, and the whole world sees this bloke with a coat over his head, handcuffed to some great lump of a policeman, they automatically assume that he’s guilty. You know, Margaret, everyone is—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, entitled to a defence.’

  ‘But it is so. They are. And it’s my job to defend them to the utmost. Come and watch. Come and see what I do.’

  So she had sat here in this same courtroom – was it on the same seat? She wasn’t sure. But she remembered the trial. The defendant was accused of murdering his wife. He had confessed to the killing, but he was pleading not guilty to murder. His defence was that he had been provoked and he had lashed out without thought or intention. She had gazed at him, trying to decide if that was true. He was small and pale. He looked malnourished, as if he had spent his whole life eating white bread and chips. When the prosecuting counsel described how his wife had died, how she had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy wrench in her kitchen, he had cried. His sobs washed around the courtroom, pitiful, painful to hear. And it had seemed a foregone conclusion that he would be found guilty. Until Patrick began to lay out the defence. She remembered the way he had done it. Witness after witness called to describe the dead woman. A bully, a nag, selfish, vain, aggressive, mean with money, sexually voracious. Margaret sat and listened. And watched the jury. Nine men and three women.