36
After getting Sexton to sling his hook, Jo takes a seat back in her office, pulls Maura Sexton’s inquest details from her bag and starts reading the section relating to the cause of death, holding it a couple of inches from her face. Foxy sits in the uncomfortable chair on the far side of her desk, which she keeps for visitors, complaining about Sexton being a loose cannon.
‘He’s not himself,’ Jo agrees, more determined than ever to get to the bottom of Maura’s case. ‘“Compression of carotid arteries causing cerebral ischemia”,’ she reads in a puzzled voice.
‘Good to have you back,’ Foxy says.
‘If Maura was hanged, as against strangled, there’d be no damage to the hyoid bone in the neck, because the ligature typically misses it when the pressure is here,’ she goes on, drawing a line around her jaw, ‘but a pair of hands is much bigger and causes more damage.’
‘Hands … you mean she was strangled? There was no evidence of any bruising, was there?’ Foxy asked.
‘No,’ Jo says slowly as she scans. ‘But if the hyoid is damaged it backs up Sexton’s theory that maybe Maura was killed before she was strung up.’
‘Any defensive wounds on the arms or anywhere else to back that theory up?’
‘No,’ Jo says. ‘But there wouldn’t necessarily be, if, hypothetically, she knew the person or people there.’
‘What about the headstone?’ Foxy asks. ‘Who paid for it?’
‘She did,’ Jo says. ‘Long story – she was leaving him. Apparently faking her own death was easier than telling him. She was hoping to cash in on a life-insurance policy. Sexton was the beneficiary.’
Foxy pulls a face. ‘Have you spoken to him?’
Jo shakes her head. ‘Not yet.’ She flicks the page. ‘And why do some coroners keep recording suicides as “open” verdicts?’
‘Out of sensitivity to the families who don’t accept death was the intended outcome,’ Foxy says.
‘I know that, but what about sensitivity to the Central Statistics Office?’ Jo snaps. ‘How can we ever know how widespread a problem it is if they’re deliberately cooking the books?’
‘We already know things are bad. It always tops the toll on the roads,’ Foxy says. ‘And some of them don’t want to deprive families of their life-insurance pay-outs,’ he adds.
Jo tosses the report on her desk, ‘Tell me about it. You know they’ve had to rip out and refit Rory’s school with anti-ligature devices?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Basically, rounded cornered partitions, sinks with no taps, toilets with no seats. No hooks.’
‘You sound worried.’
‘I am … this craze is putting ideas in the kids’ heads. It’s like a cult now. I mean, I look back on my teenage years, and they were the worst in my life without question. I lost Dad. I blamed myself, and I thought I’d never get my sight back. But suicide never occurred to me, it wasn’t an option. If it had been as common as coffee back then, I just don’t know. Your hormones are all over the place, little problems become huge, you’ve no perspective on life and—’
‘Rory’s a smart kid,’ Foxy cuts in.
‘They all are, or were. Read the papers. Watch the news. The parents are all saying the same thing – they had no warning, they had no signs. It’s not vulnerable kids who are doing it any more, it’s anyone it occurs to. I think they see it as romantic, or tragic, or something. Those vampire books have a lot to answer for, if you ask me. Dead kids coming back more powerful to avenge themselves on the living. In a way they’re right. Just the threat of it does give them power. When I was growing up—’
‘Back in the day—’ Foxy says.
‘Yeah.’ She appreciates his attempt to lighten things, allows herself a grin. ‘In prehistoric times, in my teens, I realized that, as I had no money, no power, no space and was completely at Mum’s mercy, the only thing to do was to build a life for myself, and that’s why I went to Templemore.’
Jo had met Dan in the Garda training college and had become pregnant with Rory while still in her teens herself.
Foxy glances through the glass to the detective unit, where Jeanie is crossing the room. He hopes Jeanie will not come in.
‘If you’re a teenager, all you have to do is threaten suicide and you can get whatever you want. The whole order of things is messed up,’ Jo continues. ‘The next generation will have no respect for authority.’
‘You’re not really worried about Rory?’ Foxy asks.
‘He’s under a lot of pressure with his exams this year, these other kids’ cases have freaked him, and’ – she puts her head in her hands – ‘he Googled “carbon-monoxide poisoning” last night. You don’t have to say anything, I know it could be innocent, but equally …’ She draws a breath. ‘Some of the parents are so freaked out in the schools they’re talking about sectioning their kids.’
‘Putting them in asylums?’ Foxy asks, astonished.
‘Anyway,’ Jo says, reaching for the report again, ‘it’s back to square one. I’m going to try and find out who Maura had borrowed all that money from. Did I tell you what she was going to use it for?’
Foxy shakes his head. When Jo didn’t pick up on the prompt, he says, ‘No.’
‘A one-way ticket to Australia.’
‘What do you mean? What about Sexton? They were having a baby, weren’t they?’
‘I told you, she was leaving him, wanted a new start. Maura’s mother has never told Sexton.’
‘I thought they were happy.’
‘Nobody ever knows what goes on behind closed doors … I should know.’
‘And me,’ Foxy agrees. His own wife, Dorothy, had left on the birth of their daughter, Sal, who had Down’s. Sal was a teenager too. He wouldn’t have changed a hair on her head, and would never have to go through what the parents of so-called ‘normal’ adolescents were going through. Since Sal was a tiny baby, she’d had heart problems. ‘You going to tell Sexton?’
‘Yes. Eventually. He wanted answers. I’m going to get them for him. Where is Sexton anyway?’
Foxy shrugs. ‘I’m really worried about him. He wanted to kill that scrote, Canon, earlier. He’s supposed to be putting together a report for the chief, but based on what he just did, I’m not sure what’s going on any more.’
Jo reaches for the ringing phone on her desk.
‘What’s the story with your sight?’ Foxy asks.
‘How long you got?’ she replies, putting the handset to her ear.
Foxy stands to leave. He’s only got as far as the door when Jo slams the receiver down, saying, ‘Shit.’ She starts knocking things over in her haste to get out from behind the desk.
‘What’s the matter?’ Foxy asks, alarmed.
Whoever had been on the phone could only have spoken to her for ten seconds, max.
‘Rory didn’t show up for his exam this morning. They don’t know where he is,’ she says.
37
Rory is standing at Lucy’s front door with a bunch of wilting, garage-bought carnations. Nigel opens, and stares, his hands held away from his body like a surgeon, because he’s got a pair of yellow rubber gloves on.
‘These are for Lucy,’ Rory says, thrusting his arm out.
Nigel hesitates, and then takes them. ‘Are you a friend?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What’s a sort of a friend?’
Rory lowers his hoodie. ‘We met at a party.’
Nigel stares. ‘Lucy is too young to go to parties. When exactly was this?’
‘I’m not sure, Mr Starling. There was nothing, like … I mean, we didn’t … I wouldn’t want you to think …’
‘I believe “make out” is the phrase you’re looking for.’
Rory scratches the back of his head. ‘I was going to say “talk for long”, because I wouldn’t want you to think we became close friends, because that would be a lie. I just wondered how Lucy is doing, Mr Starling. I was really sorry to hear about what happened.
I’m Rory Mason.’
Nigel peels off a rubber glove and stretches out his hand. ‘Lucy’s on the mend, thanks for asking. Come in.’
Rory shakes and follows him in to the house, wiping his hand on the back of his jacket.
‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’ Nigel asks, leading them into the sitting room.
The furniture is shabby, but the room pristine.
Rory shrugs. ‘Yeah, technically. But they sent us all home because … because … it’s a teacher-training afternoon.’
Nigel kneels on a sheepskin rug at a spot on the floor near some scattered fire irons, a rag and an open tub of Brasso. He lifts a poker and starts to shine. ‘Sit down,’ he directs, without looking up.
Rory has his hands in his pockets, and he keeps them there as he takes a seat on an armchair.
‘Not that one,’ Nigel says sharply.
Rory stands up quickly.
‘That’s where Lucy used to sit,’ Nigel says.
Rory steps sideways and reticently takes the couch. His phone is ringing for the zillionth time, but it’s set to vibrate. It sounds like a trapped insect in his pocket.
‘So you met Lucy at a party?’
‘Right,’ Rory answers.
‘Would this have been around New Year’s? Lucy didn’t come home one night back then, and she said she was staying with a girlfriend.’
‘I’m pretty sure she was there with a girlfriend,’ Rory says, glancing at his buzzing phone, peeping out of his breast pocket. It’s only his mother again.
‘And what did you talk about?’
Rory shrugs. ‘This and that. How is she?’
‘We’re going to need a miracle. Do you believe in the power of prayer, Rory?’
‘That would be no. I’m an atheist.’
‘You don’t believe in anything? What’s the point of anything, in that case?’
Rory clears his throat. ‘I just don’t think, if God existed and was loving, kind, and forgiving like he’s supposed to be, he’d leave so many people in the world starving, and have so many little kids getting their arms and legs blown off in war. You said Lucy is getting better?’
Nigel bends down and picks up a J-cloth. ‘Man causes hunger and war, Rory, not God. When you have God in your life things that seem mundane suddenly have meaning. Things that would try and test you to the limit become bearable. If it weren’t for Him, we’d never be coping right now.’
‘Can I see her?’ Rory asks.
Nigel looks up, surprised. ‘I’m afraid Lucy’s not well enough for visitors.’ He pauses. ‘Are you hungry? I make a mean triple-decker sandwich.’
Rory shakes his head.
Nigel sighs. ‘Oh, all right, you can see her for a quick minute.’
He leads him to the room where Lucy is sleeping.
Rory stands in the doorway looking appalled.
‘She’s sleeping a lot at the moment,’ Nigel explains. ‘We found out about a pioneering new medical project that needed volunteers. There are new drugs that could change everything for Lucy, but they haven’t been tested yet. It just might give her the boost she needs, but we won’t know about progress until she finishes the course.’
An alarm starts to beep from the kitchen and Nigel excuses himself. ‘That’ll be the roast. I’ll be back in a second. I just need to turn it off.’
When Nigel returns to the room a minute later, Rory has gone. He hears the front door close and walks over to Lucy to make sure she’s warm enough before pulling her blankets up a little higher.
‘Breaking hearts even still, princess,’ he says lovingly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
38
The post-mortem on Anna Eccles takes place in a prefab in Marino – the city’s temporary morgue for over a decade. The facilities – or rather, lack of – make a joke of the abiding principle engraved in the coroner’s court, which Sexton is reciting for McConigle to make that exact point: ‘Show me the manner in which a nation cares for its dead and I will measure with mathematical exactness the tender mercies of its people, their respect for the laws of the land and their loyalties to high ideals.’
By way of agreement, McConigle springs up and down on her insteps to show how bouncy the floor is. ‘Couldn’t even stretch to tiles,’ she says about the linoleum-covered floor where the body fluids will sluice once the post-mortem begins. On cue, Professor Michael Hawthorne, the state pathologist, arrives, gowned up in the same white polyethylene suit as Sexton and McConigle are wearing. An aide wheels the body of Anna Eccles in behind him. It has been in storage in one of the horizontal cooling units set in the next room.
‘Morning, campers,’ Hawthorne says cheerily. ‘Anyone want to tell me what this is about? I haven’t had time to read the notes. I was in Kerry yesterday following a house fire, and in Galway the day before following a house party …’
Sexton crosses his arms and focuses on anything other than Anna’s face. She’s only a kid, covered for the moment, with a sheet up to the neck.
‘Anna Eccles is fourteen, Prof,’ McConigle explains. ‘She’s supposedly the latest teen suicide victim.’
Hawthorne picks up on the key word. ‘“Supposedly”, eh?’ He moves to one of Anna’s hands and lifts it at the wrist, turning it over to both sides before leaning across the body to do the same with the other. ‘The psychologist Sigmund Freud held a conference in the 1920s on clusters of teen suicides, because it baffled even him. He, by the way, himself committed suicide. It happens to be the third leading cause of death in 15–24-year-olds in the States, did you know that? There have been major incidents in Germany, Japan, Canada and the United States. Plutarch wrote about an epidemic among young women in ancient Greece, which was stopped after a threat to drag their naked corpses through the streets. Appearance apparently matters to girls even after death.’ Hawthorne looks up from his rambling. ‘There’s no sign of any bruising.’
He begins to scrape underneath Anna’s fingernails and to deposit the contents into an evidence vial. ‘They say girls tend to overdose or slash their wrists rather than hang themselves, out of consideration for their appearance at their funerals,’ he continues. ‘What do you think of that?’
McConigle glances at Sexton protectively.
He bristles. He’s got a thick skin, except when it comes to pity. That always gets to him, puts him on the defensive.
‘I think that’s bullshit,’ he says.
‘Not at all,’ Hawthorne argues, oblivious to Sexton’s fury. ‘It’s the human condition. All copycat behaviour can be explained by the “contagion effect”. One person does something and, suddenly, something previously taboo becomes acceptable, like a bunch of pedestrians suddenly getting brave and following a jaywalker across the street.
‘The adult population has had plenty of experience of being sucked into suicide cults over the years,’ he goes on, lowering the sheet and examining Anna’s skin closely, taking the tip off a felt marker with his teeth.
‘Jonestown, Guyana, 1978 …’ He circles bruises on Anna’s knees. ‘More than 900 members of the People’s Temple died from a cyanide-laced drink, more than 300 of them children. An audiotape was recovered from the scene in which the cult leader, Jim Jones, can be heard stating, “We committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting about the conditions of an inhumane world.”’
McConigle snorts. ‘You know a lot about it.’
‘Did my thesis on it, fascinating stuff,’ he explains. ‘Then there was the Order of the Solar Temple, which sprang up in Switzerland and Canada to prepare for the Second Coming and unite Christian and Islamic faiths. The order ritually sacrificed a three-month-old boy in Canada in 1994 because he was identified as the Antichrist. Some forty-eight adults and children were also found dead.
‘Then there was Marshall Applewhite, leader of the Heaven’s Gate Cult. In Santa Fe in 1997, his followers asphyxiated themselves with plastic bags. Thirty-nine people died in order to evacuate earth, which they believed was about to be recycled,
so as to get on board an alien spacecraft following the comet Hale-Bopp.’
McConigle shoots Sexton a look of bemusement.
Hawthorne hasn’t finished yet. ‘The Waco siege in Texas of 1993 ended when seventy-six Davidian cult members controlled by David Koresh died in a fire set inside their compound after the FBI tried to gain entry following allegations of child abuse. Twenty-four of the dead were children. David Koresh never met his father. His mother lived with a violent alcoholic and at four, David moved in with his grandmother. His nickname was “Mr Retardo” in school. In his twenties he became a born-again Christian and in 1983 began having a sexual relationship with the 76-year-old leader of a splinter group of the Seventh-day Adventist church. After his aging girlfriend claimed that David was the chosen one, Koresh would annul the marriages of couples joining the group and have exclusive sexual relations with the women, and the underage girls whose parents had joined the cult. Remember?
‘It’s important to keep suicide cults in mind even when we are dealing with a seemingly random copycat case, because of what they tell us about the human condition and how suggestible the mind is. And so the consideration of appearance post-mortem is not as far out as you seem to think, Detective.’
Sexton rubs his hands over his face to revive himself. The sight of Anna – her skin is so thin at her joints that the bones look set to burst through – is going to rank up there with the most depressing things he’s ever seen.
‘Anorexic?’ McConigle asks, reading his mind.
‘By the looks of it,’ the Prof comments, as he positions a scalpel at the top of her breastbone. Sexton puts a fist to his mouth and takes a step back, glancing away. There is scented Vaseline smeared in his nostrils but it’s the sight and sounds that get to him most. Bones creaking and vital organs being scooped out and slopped into stainless-steel trays. The Prof stops suddenly, distracted.
‘Ho hum, what’s this?’ He places the blade down and traces his latex-covered fingers along Anna’s mottled neck. An imprint of the rope’s weave can clearly be made out between the lividity patches.
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