I Saw You

by Julie Parsons

  ‘I’ll give you her keys.’ Sally Spencer had taken the bunch from a large brown leather bag. ‘These are for the house. This is the car. I suppose these must be for her office. I don’t know about the rest.’ She held out the bag to him. ‘Maybe you should take this too. It’s got nearly all of Marina’s life in it.’ She shook it for effect. ‘Her passport, driving licence, purse, cards, phone. Bills to be paid, bills paid, shopping lists. Make-up bag, hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste. Letters, photos, diary, you name it.’

  ‘Did the guards give it to you?’ McLoughlin hefted it in his hand.

  ‘Yes, eventually. After they’d finished with their tests.’

  ‘It wasn’t in the lake?’ He turned it over, noticed its scratches and blemishes.

  ‘No, it was found in the house. It was under a bed, apparently.’ Sally’s mouth trembled. ‘You will go there, won’t you? You’ll want to see exactly where she was found.’

  ‘Yes, I will, but first things first. I want to see her computer. And tell me about the note. The suicide note. Where was it found?’

  ‘In the bag. But it wasn’t a note.’ Sally faced him again. ‘It was a scrap of paper, a few words.’

  ‘So you saw it? Was it handwritten?’

  ‘They showed it to me. Kind of. They had it in a plastic bag.’

  ‘An evidence bag?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. An evidence bag. It wasn’t handwritten, it was typed. Well, computer-written, not typed, strictly speaking. And it didn’t ring true. It didn’t sound like Marina.’

  ‘What did it sound like? What did it say?’ McLoughlin tried to modify his voice so she wouldn’t feel he was interrogating her.

  She shrugged. ‘Something about her begging me for forgiveness. How if I couldn’t forgive her now maybe in the next.’

  ‘The next?’

  ‘Just the next. They seemed to think she meant the next life. But it’s ridiculous. Marina was the most thoroughgoing atheist I ever met. She wasn’t an agnostic. She had no doubt. She did not believe in an afterlife. We talked about it often. Even when her father died, when she was six, and I tried to soften it by telling her he was with God and the angels. Even then she looked at me as if I was mad. Marina was many things but she wasn’t a hypocrite.’

  McLoughlin didn’t respond. There was no point in hurting her any more. But he remembered the many lectures about suicide he’d sat through. There was a standard form of suicide note. It was common to ask for forgiveness. It was usual to refer to the life to come. The frame of mind, the mental state, whatever you wanted to call it, that allowed the idea of suicide to take hold changed the person in the most fundamental way.

  ‘You know, Sally, I’ve said I’ll look into this. I don’t have too much time. I’m supposed to be heading off to France in a week or so. But I have to say to you again, if the guards think Marina killed herself, then you can be sure she did. They don’t make decisions like that on a whim.’

  ‘I know, I know, I know all that.’ Her anger and impatience were making McLoughlin nervous. ‘I know the state pathologist did the post-mortem. I know he said that it was consistent with accidental death or suicide. I know all that. I just don’t believe it. Look,’ she held up her hands, ‘consider this. The week after Marina supposedly killed herself I got a call from one of her neighbours. A delivery-man was at the door. He had a new fridge-freezer that she’d ordered three days before she died. Now, explain that to me. If you were suicidal would you be ordering fridges? Would you?’ She was shouting now. Repeating the words over and over again.

  He waited for her to finish. Then he picked up the bag. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  The little dog stood up and wagged its tail expectantly. Its brown, button-shaped eyes looked towards its lead hanging from a hook behind the door. Sally grasped its collar. She nodded dumbly in McLoughlin’s direction and sank back down on the sofa. He could see she was exhausted. She’d had enough for one day. He reckoned she’d be asleep before he’d driven down the lane and out on to the main road. Sleep was good. Sleep was healing. And as for the new fridge-freezer, he’d heard variations on that story many times. New sofas ordered. Holidays booked. Tickets to see the Rolling Stones in Rio. They were all part of the terrible mystery of suicide.

  The fridge-freezer was jammed into the small entrance hall. It was still in all its polystyrene packing. McLoughlin didn’t know much about white goods, but this was an expensive brand. Stainless steel. A classy number. He pushed past and into the sunny, open-plan kitchen. It was all classy. Lots more stainless steel. A rail suspended from the ceiling with pots hanging from it. There were the usual touches of the twenty-first century. Eye-level oven, ceramic hob, island with a round stainless-steel bowl and a tap curved like a tightly held archer’s bow. A glass door gave on to a small decked patio. There was a key in the lock. He turned it and stepped outside. It was a real sun-trap. Mica sparkled in the granite garden walls and heat radiated up from the faded wood. There were herbs planted in large terracotta pots. A miniature bay tree, and the feathery fronds of bronze fennel. Oregano and thyme. A large fragrant rosemary bush, and a few smaller pots with the pink tufted flowers of chives, and a couple of mint varieties. He reached down and checked the soil. It felt cool and damp. Someone must be coming in to water, he thought. He glanced around. The patio was overlooked on all sides, but there was no sign of life in any of the windows.

  He moved back inside and locked the kitchen door. He walked towards the front of the house and into the sitting room. It was simply furnished with a wooden floor and a black leather sofa. Above the small cast-iron fireplace a large abstract painting glowed in reds, oranges and yellows. The coffee-table had a pile of glossy magazines. McLoughlin sat down. The sofa cushions gave way beneath his bulk with a gentle sigh. He flicked through the magazines. Some had pages marked, notes scribbled in pencil in the margins, and one had scraps of different-coloured fabrics pinned to an article about a new range of paint colours. He replaced the magazines in a neat pile. There were no books, no photographs, nothing personal in this room. It was clean and tidy, like the kitchen, but it could have belonged to anyone.

  He stood up and went back out into the hall. He climbed the steep stairs. Ahead was a bathroom, as smart and stylish as the kitchen. Next door was a small bedroom. A large bed took up most of the space and the rest was filled with a mirrored wall of fitted cupboards. McLoughlin slid back the door. Clothes hung from a rail. Beneath them shoes were neatly stacked. A long row of drawers contained underwear, T-shirts, sweaters and a collection of scarves and gloves. Everything was neat and orderly. He searched through the clothes, feeling inside pockets. But there was nothing of any consequence. A couple of scrunched-up tissues. A bus ticket. A few coins. He slid back the mirrored door. He scrutinized himself. He needed a haircut. He didn’t like to let his hair get too long on top. It made him look as if he was trying to cover up his gradually increasing baldness.

  He walked out of the bedroom and through the other door on the landing. Now, this was more like it, he thought. A workroom or study. A desk covered with papers, books, and a couple of mugs, the dried-out dregs of coffee staining them inside. And, in pride of place, a large Apple screen. He sat at the desk. He reached for the power button and pressed it firmly. He waited for the hum, the familiar clicks and purrs and the machine’s gradual return to life. The walls of this room were covered with pictures, some torn from magazines, others photographs. There was a collage of family snaps. He recognized a young Sally, petite and blonde with a turned-up nose and very blue eyes, and a child who was obviously Marina. And a handsome man, with Marina’s eyes and cheekbones and her wide smile. What was it Sally had said? That Marina was six when her father died? They looked so happy together. But McLoughlin knew to be sceptical. How many family photos show anything other than the good days? he wondered. In all the houses he’d visited he couldn’t remember ever coming across a family photograph that showed anything less than happiness. It was as if the camera acted as a tool
of transformation, an alchemy for converting misery to joy, despair to hope.

  He leaned closer to the wall and examined the photographs more carefully. They showed different scenes from around the same period. Marina seemed to be three or so. Her brother was a baby. The photos had been taken in different locations – a garden, somewhere by the sea, and others on a boat. She was variously holding the tiller, hauling on a sheet, and there were a couple in which she and her brother were sitting on the bow, their legs trailing over the side. In all of them she was wearing a life-jacket, one of the old-fashioned uncomfortable types with a stiff collar that supported the neck and head.

  He turned away from the wall and pulled open the desk drawers. They were crammed with notebooks, sketchbooks, boxes of charcoal and pastels, all kinds of pens and pencils and small bottles of coloured inks. He was rummaging through them as the computer screen brightened and came to life. The blue Apple background was covered with folders. They all seemed to be work-related. He opened them in turn. Drawings and photographs, estimates, records of work completed, copies of invoices. She was doing well. Making money. He closed the files and scanned the folders again. One had the title ‘my stuff’. He clicked it open. It contained five emails. He opened them, one after another. The sender names looked like the senders of Spam. Made-up user-names. Each had nothing in the subject line. He read down through them. Each had just one sentence. ‘I SAW YOU’. The three words were in huge capital letters. He read them out loud: ‘I saw you.’ That was all. Three words. Nothing more. He opened the other folders again. Quickly, but systematically, working through the files. But there was nothing else that wasn’t work-related. He sat back on the chair, then pressed the ‘print’ icon. The emails slid on to the floor. He picked them up, folded them in half, then in half again, and put them into his inside pocket. He closed the computer down and switched it off. He was hungry. It must be nearly lunchtime. He walked downstairs and opened the front door. He stepped out into the sunshine and reached into his pocket for the bunch of keys.

  He walked away from the house. Somehow his appetite had disappeared. He pulled out his phone and flicked down through the names. He pressed the call button.

  ‘Hi, Johnny. How’s the voice? Better than the head, I hope.’ He paused. ‘Listen, can you do something for me? Marina Spencer – do you remember the name? Can I call in this afternoon? You owe me a favour after your performance the other night and I’m coming to collect. See you later.’

  Johnny would sort it out. Separate the dross from the pure gold. Sieve out the speculation and leave the facts for all to see. So there could be no doubt when he faced Marina’s mother again. There could be no doubt at all.

  EIGHT

  Margaret knelt before her daughter’s grave. ‘Hello, my darling,’ she said, her voice low. ‘And how are you today?’ She set to work clearing the weeds that had taken over the gravel, which marked Mary’s resting-place. ‘Such a mess. All those years I’ve been away I should have got someone else to take care of it, shouldn’t I?’

  The pile of weeds grew. As she cleared away the accumulation of rubbish she found the stones and shells she had brought from New Zealand when she had come back to Dublin for Jimmy Fitzsimons’s trial. She had gathered them from the beach below the house in Torbay. Now she took a large bottle of water from her basket and a cloth and cleaned the dirt from them. ‘There, now, that’s much better, isn’t it? Look how the paua shell shines. Such beautiful colours. Do you remember when we used to go snorkelling? You didn’t like it at first. But when you learned how to breathe and open your eyes under water it was so beautiful. And do you remember the time we saw the little octopus? And he was so shocked to see you, he shot away. And you got a fright too. And you swallowed all that seawater. Do you remember?’

  She sat back on her heels. It was much better now. It was tidy and weed-free, and the shells and stones looked like they belonged there.

  ‘I had to pull you out of the sea and you scraped your leg on the rocks when I was trying to lift you up. And the salt water stung so much you started to cry. And the only way I could stop you crying was to promise that we’d go to the ice-cream shop on the way home.’ She smiled at the memory of that day, stood up and stretched. Her thigh muscles were stiff from the unnatural position. She stretched to ease out her back and shoulders. It was another sunny day and warm enough to have left the house without a coat. She pulled a large rubbish bag from the basket, stuffed the weeds into it and tied it tightly in a knot. She looked around for a bin. It was busy here today. From where she was standing she could see the stone walls of the chapel. A large crowd was outside and, as she watched, a group of black-clad pall-bearers slid a coffin from a hearse and shouldered it inside.

  She looked down at her daughter’s headstone. She read out the inscription:

  ‘To see a world in a grain of sand,

  And a heaven in a wild flower,

  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

  And eternity in an hour.’

  Mary had loved William Blake’s work. She had carried a copy of Songs of Innocence and Experience everywhere with her. It had never been found. Above the inscription, Mary’s name and her dates of birth and death were carved: 1975–1995. She would have turned thirty this year. She could have been a mother. She could have been anything. And I could have been a grandmother, Margaret thought. I could have seen the future spreading out towards infinity. Generations of my descendants. Keeping my memory alive. But there is none of me now. No one to look in the mirror and recognize me in their features. No one to remember her birthday. No one to weep for her or mourn her. No one to put up a headstone and tend her grave. For a moment she thought she would collapse with the weight of her despair.

  She bowed her head. ‘Bye-bye, sweetheart. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well, my darling.’

  She walked slowly down the path, past angels and saints and Christs crucified. Then she stopped and put her hand into her trouser pocket. She pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. Se turned towards the chapel. The faint sound of music drifted out as she walked past the front entrance and around towards the back. She dumped the plastic bag in an already overflowing bin and went on towards the line of yews she could see in the distance. The security guard in the little hut at the front gate had written down the number of the grave and pointed out the way to her. ‘It’s over there beside the trees. You see the big tomb with the angel on top? Well, the one you’re looking for is beside it. What was the name again?’ He looked down at the hard-backed ledger on the desk. ‘Holland, was it? Died in 2000. Yeah, here it is, Patrick Charles Holland. You can’t miss it.’

  The big tomb with the angel on top held Patrick’s father and mother and his baby sister, who had died when she was three. Patrick’s headstone was more modest. Black marble with the inscription picked out in silver. The grave was covered with marble chips and a large bunch of white lilies filled the still air with their cloying sweetness. Margaret put down her basket. She closed her eyes. The words came to her lips:

  ‘Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.

  Blessed art thou amongst women,

  And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.’

  Never forgotten, the old words, the old ways. A decade of the rosary. In times of trouble, at moments of crisis, the words came unbidden. Her father had been a man of strong faith and conviction. A conservative Catholic. Reared in the old way, his belief dominated by fear more than love. She hadn’t realized until she became pregnant with Mary. She’d thought his sophistication, his education, his interest in books and music, the theatre and cinema meant something to him. They did, but not as much as his religion. When she’d told him about the baby she’d thought he would forgive her, that he would understand, that after a period of anger and grief he would continue to love and support her. But she had been wrong. He had listened in silence to her words. Then he had exploded with a fury she had never seen before. She wanted him to tell her that everything was al
l right, that he would look after her, but instead he had hit her across the face, the full force of his body behind his hand. And when she reeled backwards, losing her step and falling to the floor, he had stood and stared at her. And when she reached up to him and called to him for help, he had turned away.

  She had prayed that night as she lay in bed. But the merciful God did not answer. And in the morning she left the house without speaking to her father. She never spoke to him again. She went to London, to an abortion clinic, but something happened there. The merciful God intervened. As she was lying on the trolley, the IV already in the back of her hand He gave her the strength to say no. That she would not have the abortion. That she would find another way.

  But where had the other way led? She had been lulled into a false sense of security by all those years in New Zealand when she had been out of reach. She should never have left. She should never have come back to Ireland. The old God was a vengeful God. He had lain in wait for her. And He had pounced and taken the only thing that mattered.

  But still the words came. And she began to pray again, over and over, a repetitive drone that dulled the pain, closed down the senses so at first she didn’t hear the voice, a girl’s voice: ‘Hi, sorry, I was wondering, do you know where I could get some water?’