I Saw You
JULIE PARSONS
PAN BOOKS
To Harriet, Sarah and John,
as it was in the beginning
CONTENTS
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
He lay slumped in the corner of the shed. His hands, cuffed behind his back, were chained to a ring set in the wall. Wide grey tape covered his face. Only his eyes, pale blue, red-rimmed, were visible. He wanted to call out, to beg for help. But he could make no sound. He wanted to bang on the wall to attract attention. But he could not move his hands and arms. He wanted to kick the heavy wooden door, to break through to the outside. But his feet would not reach that far. He needed to drink. But there was no water. He needed to eat. But there was no food. There had been none for days. He had lost count of how many. He had tried to keep track by counting the number of times that the beam of sunlight had drilled through the small crack in the wood that covered the window. One, two, three, four, five, six. He could hold on to six, but after that, pain, confusion, fear blotted everything else out.
And then he was blind.
And then he thought he was somewhere else, and there was a table laden with food, and a running tap, and he could turn his head and open his mouth and the silver dribble of water would drip on to his tongue. His poor swollen tongue.
And then there was nothing more. Just the smell of his body rotting.
And then there wasn’t even that.
Ballyknockan, near Blessington, Co. Wicklow
April 2000
It was a lovely day to get out of the office, the estate agent thought. A perfect spring day. A cloudless sky, and warm enough to have the car window open as she drove from the city centre along the motorway towards Blessington. According to her information, the property was in Ballyknockan, a village of stone houses up towards the dark green pines that clothed the flanks of the west Wicklow mountains. She slowed to get her bearings and turned the printed email on the passenger seat towards her so she could read it more easily. The cottage had belonged to a German couple, Hans and Renate Becker. They had used it as a holiday home, but now they were both dead and their daughters wanted to sell. The email was from Petra Becker. Her English was just about perfect.
I do not know the condition of the cottage. We have not been there for many years. My father had a caretaker for it once, but we have had no contact with him for a long time. I will send to you by post the keys. Please put it on to the market as soon as possible. We understand that the value of houses in Ireland has increased by a large amount. Please advise us as to its value now.
Fraülein Becker was right. These houses, even though they were small, were worth a lot of money. A twenty-mile commute was considered nothing these days, the estate agent thought, as she bumped up the lane from the village and stopped at a five-barred gate by a stand of pines.
She got out of the car and fiddled with the gate’s rusty latch. It was stiff and resistant to the touch. She shivered. A breeze stirred the needles on the trees, and a wisp of mist drifted down from the peak of the hill above. She got back into the car and drove slowly up the boreen towards the house. It looked fine from the outside, although the garden was overgrown and neglected. Nothing that a boy with a strimmer wouldn’t put right in an afternoon.
She fumbled in her bag for the keys. Inside it was dark. She reached for the light switch, but the electricity must have been turned off. She walked quickly around the ground floor. A simple layout. Large country-style kitchen to the left of the small front hall, and a sitting room with a big open fireplace to the right. Upstairs there was one double bedroom, two singles and a bathroom, complete with freestanding tub. As far as she could see the roof wasn’t letting in the rain and the house felt dry. She’d get the electricity turned on and come back with a photographer and by the high selling season in midsummer this would be a very saleable property.
She locked the front door and walked around to the back of the house. The email had said something about outhouses or a garage. Often a selling point with these old properties. Potential for renovation or even development. Behind the house was a yard, cobbles overgrown with grass. And a row of sheds. She tried the doors. Nothing much here. The last was locked. A heavy padlock hung from the bolt. She checked her keys but none fitted. A piece of wood had been hammered over the window. She tugged at it and it began to give. She picked up a stick from the ground and used it as a lever. The wood swung away, revealing a broken pane. She put her face up to it and cupped her hands around her eyes. A beam of light shone from behind her head on to the floor. She could see something. Another coal sack, maybe? Or a bag of rubbish? The kind of stuff that would need to be cleared out.
She pulled at the wood again and this time the whole piece came away. Light flooded the darkness. And now she could see clearly. The thing had a familiar shape. Round and smooth and the colour of ivory. Two dark holes stared up at her. The rest was obscured by what looked like heavy-duty sticky tape. She craned her head to see more. A jacket, with a white shirt inside it, a pair of trousers and shoes, lying as if flung there. And just visible the bones of a hand and fingers and the bright gleam of a chain.
ONE
July 2005. Such a beautiful summer, Michael McLoughlin thought, as he sat on the terrace outside his kitchen. He leaned back into the wooden slats of his old garden bench, and turned his face to the late-afternoon sun. It had been almost too hot out here at midday, but it was almost perfect now. He looked out across Dublin’s sprawling suburbs towards the bay and Howth Head beyond. The sea was so beautiful, striped like a piece of agate. Dark navy towards the horizon. Light green, almost turquoise closer to the shore. Every now and then a delicate stippling of white as a breeze ruffled the glittering surface. He got out his binoculars and focused on the boats. A couple of cruisers flying French flags and three from Britain. There was even an American boat out there, a big one, fifty feet or more in length, he reckoned, with that tough, buttoned-down look that deep-water yachts always have. And scattered across the bay, like a handful of children’s toys, were the sailing dinghies. On the north side from the club in Clontarf, and closer to home from the clubs in Dun Laoghaire. Where he was headed this evening. For his retirement party.
Retirement, already? He could hardly believe it. After twenty-seven years in the force they had told him he was ready to go. But he’d hung on for another ten years until it became obvious that his time was up. Did he care? Only in as much as he wasn’t sure how he would live the rest of his life. That was assuming there would be a rest of his life. So he’d done the sensible thing and gone to all the Preparation for Retirement courses that the welfare office laid on. And he’d tried to pay attention and not be one of the sniggering cynics in the back row. And maybe he’d learned a few things because he’d got himself some class of a job for the rest of the summer. He was going to deliver boats to France and Spain – some for a cruise hire company based in Brittany, returning boats that had been sailed to Ireland on holiday, and others for people who didn’t have the time to get their boats to the Med for their few weeks’ cruising. The company be
longed to a guy he’d crewed for over the years. There wasn’t much money in it. Just his keep and a few bob for drinking and a couple of weeks in one of the company’s apartments or villas. And who knew where that might lead? There was very little to keep him in Dublin now. His mother was well looked after in the nursing-home. She’d miss him, but she’d understand. She knew he was lonely. That there was little love in his life. She’d wish him well.
He stood up and walked inside. It was dark in comparison with all that light outside. He felt his way into the bathroom, undressed and got under the shower. He’d need to lose a few pounds. Not much room below decks on most of those boats. And he had a sudden image of his ageing, flabby body in shorts. Not a pretty sight. He squatted down and let the water pour on to his neck and shoulders. His thigh muscles quivered and he thought for a moment that he would lose balance and topple forward. He pressed his hands against the tiled walls and pushed himself upright again. His breath was coming in short gasps. Jesus, he hadn’t realized how unfit he was. The last couple of years he’d been behind a desk most of the time, out at the airport working in Immigration. Too much administration, not enough action. Well, it would stop now. He’d three weeks until his first cruise. If he exercised for an hour every day, cut back on the alcohol and the fats he’d be in much better shape by then, he hoped.
He turned off the tap, picked up a towel and walked into his bedroom. He rummaged through his wardrobe and pulled out his linen jacket. He hadn’t worn it for years and he was sure the dress code for tonight was sober suits. But what the hell? It was his party so he’d wear what he wanted. He’d always been a bit of an outsider. Didn’t play golf, wasn’t interested in football, soccer or Gaelic, was a better cook than most of the Garda wives he knew. And he was a loner. No wife, not now. No kids, no family to speak of. That was why he’d picked the yacht club for the party. At least there he was known. At least there someone would greet him like a friend. Make him feel he had a place in the world.
He dressed quickly. The jacket still fitted. And it didn’t look bad, even if the colour was more ivory than cream. Maybe when he hit the sun he’d get himself a proper linen suit, trousers and a waistcoat to match. He turned away from the mirror and patted his pockets. Wallet, phone, keys, reading-glasses, all the essentials of middle-aged life. And for a special treat tonight, some cigars. Cohibas, the best Cubans. Kept in their own wooden humidor for special occasions. The box had belonged to his father. He had been a lover of cigars too. Not that he could afford them very often. So the function of the box had been subverted. His mother used to keep her favourite recipes in it, and a collection of treasures. A silver locket, a string of pearls. And some black-and-white snaps of Michael and his sister, Clare, taken with his father’s Box Brownie. When she’d gone into the nursing-home the humidor had become McLoughlin’s. He had cleaned it out and filled it with as many cigars as he could afford. And sometimes in the bottom section beneath the removable rosewood panel, he put his own treasures.
Now he picked out a dozen cigars. Enough to hand around to the lads and a few for himself. He filled his leather cigar case and slipped it into his pocket. He began to close the lid. Then he stopped. This was such a beautiful summer. Like that other beautiful summer, ten years ago. The year that Mary Mitchell died. That he met her mother, Margaret. That he fell in love with her. That he thought he would die from longing. He lifted out the tray that held the remaining cigars. Underneath was a brown envelope in a plastic bag. He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. He smoothed his fingers over its shiny surface. He didn’t need to look inside. He could see all the images as clearly as he had seen them that night in the shed behind the cottage in Ballyknockan. Mary Mitchell in the days before she died, her head shorn of its black curls, her body bruised and beaten. Humiliated and shamed. The moment of her death, her eyes half closed, her pupils fixed and dilated, a smile frozen on her wide, generous mouth. The photographs had been spread out on the floor beside Jimmy Fitzsimons. He was lying there, helpless, chained to a ring on the wall, his face covered with tape. Where Margaret had left him to die. And he had thought that McLoughlin would save him. That the guard would do the right thing. But instead he had wiped the tape, the handcuffs, the chain clean of her fingerprints. He had picked up the photographs and put them into his pocket. He could not bear to think that Mary would be tainted by Jimmy’s death. He had brought them home. He had put them into his mother’s treasure box. He had kept them and minded them. He had protected Mary’s memory as best he could and he had never stopped loving her mother.
He sighed heavily. He put the plastic bag back into the box, carefully replacing the thin wooden panel. He laid the cigars over it, then closed the lid and locked it with its small brass key. Then he turned away. It was time to go. It wouldn’t do to be late tonight of all nights. He opened the front door. It was such a beautiful evening. He got into his car and started the engine. The sun dazzled his eyes. He put up his hand to block it out. And thought he saw Mary. As she must have been when she was alive. Dancing through the rays of the evening light.
‘Goodnight, Mary. Goodnight,’ he whispered.
He put the car in gear. Then he drove slowly down the hill towards the sea.
TWO
So lovely to be back in Monkstown. On a cool clear morning to stand on the doorstep and gaze across the narrow road to the sea wall and the sea beyond. Margaret could smell the salt and the seaweed and the tang of the black mud. It was a fresh smell, washed clean by the twice daily sweep of water in and out of Dublin Bay. She glanced up at the sky. She had forgotten how the light here was always different, how it changed from one minute to the next. How clouds formed, dissolved, re-formed, filtering the sun’s rays so the light moved through the spectrum. So different from the hard, unchanging blue of the Queensland sky where she had lived since she left Dublin the last time. When she had driven Jimmy Fitzsimons’s car from the cottage in Ballyknockan to the car park in Dun Laoghaire. Waited until it was time to board the ferry for Holyhead, taken the train to London, then the tube to Heathrow. Boarded a plane for Brisbane. Wouldn’t go back to New Zealand where Mary had grown up. She’d shed all her ties there. Sold the house, closed down her medical practice. Told anyone who asked that she was going back to Ireland. But didn’t say anything else.
She’d rented a car at Brisbane airport and driven north, first to Sunshine Beach, then to Noosa where she stayed in a small hotel on the beach. Just long enough to get her bearings. Then bought a house near the small town of Eumundi. A low wooden house with a wide veranda on three sides and five acres of land around it so nothing was visible from the road. And there she had stayed. And counted out the days. Until she knew that Jimmy would be dead.
Now she walked back inside. This house, where she had grown up, had been empty for the last year or so. There had been tenants but they had moved out and she had not replaced them. So when she decided to come back it had been simple to get a taxi from the airport and come straight to Monkstown, to Brighton Vale, open the gate, walk up the path, climb the six steps to the front door, put her key into the lock and turn it.
Not much had changed. Her tenants had been happy to get such a lovely house in a beautiful place for a modest rent. They hadn’t minded that it was shabby and poorly equipped. Sometimes they talked about their landlady.
‘The poor thing . . . Can you imagine losing your only child like that?’
‘I know. I couldn’t bear it. Bad enough that she would die, but to be murdered. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘And then that trial. The guards have a lot to answer for. How did the guy get off?’
‘Something to do with the length of time they kept him for questioning. I didn’t realize the rules were so strict. It doesn’t seem right somehow.’
‘It’s a civil-liberties thing. I suppose you have to have some safeguards. Innocent until proven guilty.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe, but it sounded as if he did it. Didn’t it?’
And a
few years later they’d heard it on the news.
‘Wow, incredible. Are they sure it’s him?’
‘Apparently. It looks like his body’s been locked in that shed for years.’
‘So how did he die? Was he murdered?’
‘Starvation, the pathologist reckons.’
‘But who – who would do it? And how?’
Why, how and who? The obvious questions.
The last time Margaret had seen Mary alive it had been here in this house. That hot summer evening ten years ago. It was Saturday. The August bank holiday. She had been sitting in the garden reading the paper. She had been about to go inside and prepare some food for her mother. She had wanted Mary to stay and help her.
‘It’s not much to ask, for God’s sake. You know how hard it is to lift her.’ She had been angry and irritated.
‘She doesn’t want me to help her, Mum, you know that. She doesn’t like me to see her in bed. She doesn’t even want you to see her. I think you should get a full-time nurse or, better still, why don’t you see if you can get her into hospital? Or what about a hospice? They do have them here, don’t they?’ Mary was already fiddling with her bag, checking her keys, her wallet, her make-up. She was already walking back into the house.
‘That’s not what I want to do. You know that. That’s why we came back. Because she’s my mother and she’s dying and it’s my responsibility to look after her.’ Her voice had risen.
‘Yeah, yeah, so you keep on saying.’ Mary stopped in the doorway and turned to her. ‘Why won’t you be honest? You don’t even like her and it doesn’t seem to me as if she likes you very much. So why don’t you call it quits? Get her into hospital and then we can go home. Or, better still, to Paris or Rome or even Berlin. I’m bored with Dublin. I need a bit more excitement in my life. Anyway,’ she moved out of sight into the darkness of the house, ‘I’m off. Don’t wait up.’
I Saw You Page 1
