Red Ribbons

by Louise Phillips

  It was his mother who had told him that the elderberry tree dated back to Roman times, and that it was the tree Judas hanged from after his betrayal of Christ. To William, the trees were magnificent specimens. Ever since his holiday in Tuscany as a boy, he’d grown to compare the view from Cronly Lodge to the view overlooking Costa degli Etruschi.

  He inhaled a deep breath. That day, the brilliance of the elderberry trees was surpassed only by the vibrant blue of the ocean, despite it being October. He knew the water would be perishing cold, but he was still tempted to chance a swim, resisting only because time wasn’t on his side. The beach was one of his favourite places, even in summer, when it was spoiled by the annual throng of vulgar tourists. It was here, as a child, inhaling the smell of the Atlantic, that he had developed his love of swimming; the beach, like Cronly Lodge, held good memories for him, as well as bad.

  Once back inside the house, he checked the doors and windows, turning the Chubb twice on both the front and back doors. Pulling across the bolts he’d recently fitted, he checked his watch. It was just gone ten o’clock, time was speeding against him, but the important thing was to remain calm, a clear head would achieve so much more.

  The ticking of the Napoleon clock soothed him with the familiarity of its sound, just as it had when he’d been here with Caroline. Safe and constant, it had guided him with timely patience the night he’d prepared her. He had tried not to think about the blood as he’d cleaned down her face and body. He remembered how her skin had looked so pale, her hair soft and delicate in his fingers, the tease of her lovely curls. He had been surprised by how long her hair was when he’d brushed it out. Plaiting it was very relaxing. Within the rhythm of the clock he’d completed his task, remembering the right positioning. Although her body had become rigid, he fixed her until she was close to perfect.

  It had been different after Mother died. He had felt dragged down. At first, he thought it was the tiresome visitors, all that gushy outpouring of sympathy and he having to maintain the pretence of the grieving son. Even the weeks following her death, he had been struck by how much the whole episode had sapped the energy from him. All that time during her illness, despite her frail disposition and restricted movement, she still seemed to be everywhere. Even when she was gone, he could still feel her watching his every move. The walls, the furniture, the creaks within the floorboards, they all reeked of her. He’d burned her walking stick in the fire the night she died, pushed it into the flaming grate as if it were a poker, watching with pleasure as it turned to ash.

  He had no expectation of being distraught when she passed, but stupid thoughts came into his head. Within days of her death, he became convinced she was still alive, her and those porcelain dogs of hers, their eyes boring into him no matter which part of her bedroom he stood in.

  Walking around the house the night he’d killed her, he had tested everything, checking how they reacted to their new owner. In the downstairs kitchen, he’d lifted the plastic tablecloth from the long wooden table, the one he used to run his toy cars on as a boy. The tablecloth, although changed many times over the years, smelled the same, the stench of old plastic rising, its suction being ripped from the surface. Parts of Cronly became stifling, overpowering. Memories skipped time, as if something that had happened a long time ago had only just occurred. All her talk of Tuscany had precipitated events; his trip to Italy to recapture his fleeting childhood memory of happiness; his accidental meeting with Antonio Peri, in the end, his mother’s ultimate damnation. Had it not been for her lapses into the past, he might never have found out the truth, and the thoughts he had laboured under ever since would never have unravelled, making sense of those events from so long ago.

  He had displayed a remarkable calmness of spirit through it all. His mother’s death, ill for some time, terminal, was no surprise to Dr Matthews. The assumption that she had drifted into a permanent sleep was an easy one to foster. The small spasm her body gave out before the pillow quietened her; a perfect ending and far better than many poor souls suffered. He still remembered the eight Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Yes, in the end, right was done. Another man, a weaker one, might have shirked his responsibilities, but not him. Shirking responsibilities was not something he had ever allowed himself to do.

  It hadn’t been easy, looking at her afterwards – her dead eyes wide open, her lower lip hanging down, her mouth ugly. To him, mouths said a lot about a person. He had made a study of mouths, and knew the ones to hate: people who spoke with the contents of their lunch a garbled mess on their tongues; old people with wrinkly, sucked up lips, no longer full of lustre; or those wretched women at the street stalls near Newell Design, using their mouths like sirens.

  His mother had looked older in death, as if her body had finally been allowed to show its real age. He closed her mouth before the stiffening took hold, along with her eyes, placing a coin on each lid to keep them closed.

  Within hours, her remains were removed, taking up residence at the funeral parlour, safe and sound. He had complimented the undertaker, Hennessy, on how well she looked in the oak coffin with its brass handles. They had both taken such care in choosing it for her.

  All of this was necessary to keep up the façade; how one was viewed within one’s own community was important. Even now, months later, he could still see her sitting up in the bed, propped by her pillows, giving her the appearance of royalty, ruler of her domain. He had seen many times how she could use her vulnerability, then her fragility, to get attention, but not any more. Like the good looks of her younger days, which had turned men into fools until they tired of her, she was gone, leaving him to forge his new beginnings.

  After he had killed Caroline, he’d known he couldn’t keep the girl at the big house; the body would spoil. He had only managed to catch the fleeting cherry red of her lips with the Polaroid before they, too, lost their vitality. Catching the shade had pleased him, but the more he’d looked at the photographs, the more different she’d become. She wasn’t right – her skin was too pale, her hair lighter than he’d remembered it. There was something about the plaits, too, not finishing in the correct place. And her mouth, the colour of her lips against the cherry of the ribbons, looked maroon, more like the dying berries on the elderberry trees.

  He checked his watch again, this time comparing it to the time on the Napoleon clock, both perfect, twenty minutes before eleven. Once he had the fire in the front living room blazing, he dragged in the plastic bag from the garage. It smelled putrid when he untied the string and opened it. The blood-soaked cloth used to wipe Caroline’s hair was at the top. Her earrings were already neatly tucked away in the attaché case upstairs – once a magpie, always a magpie. Remembering the ribbon in his pocket, he knew he wanted to spend time upstairs before leaving, but all in good time.

  The living room and the garage took longer to clean than he thought they would; he had forgotten how much blood there had been. The garage was colder than the house, and he’d been forced to put on one of his mother’s old furs. When he finally got upstairs, he had barely any time left. It was a spur of the moment decision to take the Polaroid image of Caroline back to Dublin. He would have to keep it at Meadow View and although he wasn’t inclined to have visitors there, it irked him a little, never liking to link the past with the present.

  By the time the fire in the living room had died down, it was past midday. He was still confident he would be able to make his next couple of social calls, just as he had planned.

  Incident Room, Tallaght Garda Station

  Sunday, 9 October 2011, 12 noon

  AS SHE PULLED OUT FROM JESSICA BARRY’S HOUSE, Kate’s phone rang.

  ‘O’Connor.’

  ‘You talked to Jessica Barry?’

  ‘Yeah. Where are you? It might be easier to meet rather than talk on the phone.’

  ‘The Incident Room.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll be ther
e shortly.’

  On the way to the station, Kate thought about everything Jessica had told her. In one way, it all made sense, but in another it was totally contradictory. The crucifix left with Caroline, the positioning of the bodies, hands joined as if in prayer, even the lengths the killer was prepared to go to bury both girls, all pointed towards a form of protection, crafting how they looked, perhaps an almost spiritual recreation of innocence, something intensely personal to him. The contradiction was that the killer was the persecutor, not the protector.

  When Kate entered the station, a young female garda escorted her down to the Incident Room, pushing open the double doors and pointing Kate in the direction of O’Connor’s temporary office. Immediately, she got the sense that, even though it had been only four days since the first victim had gone missing, and two days since her body had been found, the room had all the appearance of an investigation that had already run for far too long. She could hear the prioritised calls from the helplines ringing constantly in the background, the hum of computers, printers splurging out information, desks and shelves littered with stained coffee cups. Every person in the room had a frown on his or her face, all looking tired but focused and utterly determined.

  When O’Connor spotted her through the glass panels of his makeshift office, he gave her a nod. He looked like a man who wanted information, and wasn’t in the mood to wait for it.

  ‘How did your last Incident Room meeting go?’ Kate asked him as she took a seat opposite him.

  ‘Not good. Now, fill me in on Jessica.’

  ‘It seems Caroline and this guy got friendly.’

  ‘Friendly?’

  ‘There was more than the interaction at the swimming pool; as we both suspected, Jessica was holding back. They met other times too. According to Jessica, he must be local because he and Caroline kept bumping into each other, but that could have been something he staged. Either way, he befriended her and Caroline looked on him as a kind of teacher, someone she could turn to for support.’

  ‘What else?’ O’Connor got up, closing the glass office door behind her and cutting out the noise from the Incident Room.

  ‘He was the one who gave her the crucifix.’

  ‘Jessica is sure of that?’ O’Connor sat down again, opposite Kate.

  ‘Absolutely, but that’s not all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s what he said to her. He told Caroline it would keep her safe, that the crucifix was a sign of Christ’s unconditional love, that through death He wanted to protect the innocent. According to Jessica, he said it was to protect Caroline from people like Innes.’

  ‘Did you ask her why?’

  ‘Why Caroline felt she’d need protection from paedophiles?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Jessica didn’t know. She thought Caroline simply liked the idea of the cross protecting her.’

  ‘And your theory?’

  ‘It’s part of the mix. I’m not sure how it fits in yet.’

  ‘Do you think Caroline was being abused?’

  ‘There’s no physical evidence to back it up, but that doesn’t rule it out either. There is another possibility though.’

  ‘I can’t wait to hear it, Kate.’ O’Connor leaned back in the chair, hands joined behind his head, the look of intensity never leaving his face.

  ‘Well, the subject obviously came up in conversation, otherwise why would Jessica know about it? But maybe it isn’t Caroline’s concerns we should be looking at, maybe it’s his.’

  ‘You’re saying we’re dealing with some religious nut with a fear or aversion to paedophiles?’

  ‘Religion is a big part of it.’

  ‘How exactly?’

  ‘Too early to pinpoint, but the symbolism is important to him. The crucifix is a form of religious protection. Then the way he dealt with both girls – the fingers intertwined, the layout of the bodies – maybe he wasn’t putting them in the foetal position, maybe he wanted them kneeling. The ribbons, they’re different. They aren’t religious, but they are equally as important to him.’

  ‘Where do you think they fit in?’

  ‘Could be a memory, something cemented in his mind.’

  ‘So why act now?’

  ‘Something happened, a trigger of some kind. Remember the book we found with Caroline?’

  ‘We can’t be sure he gave it to her.’

  ‘I think he did. It fits. The poet’s recurring theme around the death of a beautiful woman, the gentle nature of the poem ‘Eulalie’, all about loss: “Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl … her soul shines bright and strong.”’

  ‘Talk sense, Kate.’ O’Connor, obviously agitated, stood up again, pacing the room, looking out at the team and away from her.

  ‘I am talking sense. He’s looking for a relationship with them, non-sexual but intimate, a bond, a form of closeness.’

  ‘So why kill them?’

  ‘Put bluntly, they failed him.’ She turned around to face him. ‘O’Connor, you would make me feel a whole lot more comfortable if you would just sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down.’

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Reluctantly, he sat opposite her again.

  Kate continued. ‘What did you get on the statements from Amelia’s family and friends?’

  ‘Other than physical characteristics and an interest in swimming, Amelia and Caroline seem to be polls apart. Amelia was extremely confident, happy, no underlying weight issues or anything else, quite the extrovert.’

  Kate thought for a few seconds before speaking again.

  ‘He’s made a progression, O’Connor. Amelia looked right, but wasn’t. He got closer to Caroline, believed her more suitable.’

  ‘So when he abducted her, he expected what?’

  ‘Time together, I think, but the girl panicked. He wouldn’t have liked that. It explains the frenzied attack, totally at odds with how he killed Amelia.’

  ‘So what’s his next move?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Well, on him for a start. He has a pattern, a logic that makes sense to him. But of the two victims, Caroline is the key.’

  ‘Why are you so sure?’

  ‘He gave her elevated status – the choice of location, the crucifix. He wanted it to be perfect.’

  ‘Perfect? Everything is far from fucking perfect. By the way, Nolan’s told Rohan to release the stuff about the ribbons and the plaiting to the public; as of now it’s live on the public airways.’

  ‘A bit of a risk.’

  ‘We don’t have an option. Right. So Kate—’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, O’Connor. You want my next report as of yesterday.’

  ‘You’re great at reading minds, I’ll give you that. I think it’s good that Nolan has released the information on the ribbons and the plaiting. Someone out there knows something. Just because we can’t connect the dots doesn’t mean someone else can’t.’

  Cronly Lodge

  STEVE HUGHES WAS SURPRISED TO SEE THE OLD CARINA in the drive for the second time in a week. He wondered if the new lord of the manor was planning on calling more frequently. If that was his intention, then he’d better pay one last visit inside; otherwise he might not get another opportunity to look after his unfinished business in there. He was supposed to do the garden maintenance on Tuesdays, but with another job arranged in the town, he’d figured he could get it out of the way early. Still, there was no point in doing it with Cronly there; he didn’t want to give him something else to moan about.

  Returning a couple of hours later when the coast was clear, Steve wasn’t surprised to see the curtains pulled over in all the ground-floor rooms, this being the new owner’s way. Cronly had fitted bolts on the inside of the doors downstairs, so entry through the kitchen was a non-runner, but Steve still had his keys to the double locks at the front, compliments of old Mrs Cronly. The old bat was nearly as odd as the son, but she’d been friend
ly to him over the years. Steve reckoned she had a soft spot for his charm. He heard plenty of stories from Ollie Gilmartin about her, each one better than the last. Apparently, she used to be easy on the eye, and easy with other things as well. Rumour had it that the son was illegitimate, the father a priest who ended up high ranking in the Church.

  No doubt at the time it was a right scandal, but Mrs Cronly wasn’t a woman to go hiding under a rock. According to Ollie Gilmartin, most reckoned the money came from the Church in the end. The house had been in ruins in the seventies, owned by the bank in all but name. It would have taken a lot to get a debt like that off your back and, according to Mrs Flood, it was when she thought she’d lose the house altogether that she’d packed herself and the boy off to Tuscany with one aim – to get money, any way possible. Whatever the truth behind it all, Mrs Flood told him that after Alison Cronly and her son came back from Italy, money was never a problem again.

  Steve knew the son didn’t like him, and as far as Steve was concerned, the feeling was mutual. Cronly would have assumed the only key in Steve’s possession was for the back kitchen door, which was no doubt the reason he’d put those bolts on and changed the lock. Still, he was insulting his intelligence if he thought a couple of extra locks downstairs would keep him out of the house. Even if he hadn’t been given keys by the mother, he’d still have got inside.

  The wages due to him for odd jobs and gardening were still being paid into his bank account by the son, but he reckoned that wouldn’t last much longer. He wanted to get the rest of the cash hidden in the house before it was too late. Near the end, the mother forgot his money was paid directly into the bank and insisted on paying him all over again. He never refused and, as time went on, she’d become less discreet about where she kept her money – in the sideboard on the landing. There may not have been a whole lot left in there, but whatever there was, Steve figured it was due to him, for all his listening to the old bat in the past.

  On reaching the front door, he double checked behind him, conscious that William Cronly wasn’t long gone. Relieved when his key still worked, he closed the front door behind him quickly.