A Journal of Sin

by Darryl Donaghue

  Suzanne slowly shook her head, reluctantly refusing the unwelcome idea. ‘We’re not really friendly. Sean being involved will just bring hassle to my door. Hassle I don’t need. My husband’s away and Billy is sick; it’ll just be too much. John’s – John’s a nice guy, I feel sorry for him, I do, but I can’t help you, I’m sorry.’

  It wasn’t the response Sarah had hoped for. His behaviour had degraded over the past few days and squaring up to her was a sure sign he needed help. Any support would be good, but he didn’t have anyone out here, anyone that was interested in helping. Suzanne was the only person she could ask. She was asking Suzanne to do something she wasn’t willing to herself, but with his growing anger about the journals and his control of the body, it was best she kept her distance for now. If he tampered with it – or worse disposed of it – she may never be able to prove the case, and it was more than likely her career would be over. Maybe he had friends back in the city and once the electricity was back on he’d make contact with someone, anyone – an old workmate, a family member – and at least he’d have someone to talk to. She hadn’t helped his situation by asking so much of him.

  ‘Actually, could you ask him to keep away from me? I don’t want anything formal; if you could just tell him not to contact me, I’d really appreciate it.’

  ‘Is there something I’m missing?’

  ‘Like I said, I just don’t need the hassle.’

  ‘From Sean? I could have a word with him instead?’ Spending too much time refereeing their love triangle would only lead to even fewer hours of shuteye, but if it meant preventing anyone else having their face rearranged, she’d happily throw a few stern words Sean’s way.

  ‘No, no, don’t talk to him. He’s not worth provoking. Keeping John away should stop this week’s little outburst.’

  ‘His little outburst may have left John with a fractured cheek and bruised ribs. I take it he’s done this sort of thing before?’ John didn’t want her intervening and now Suzanne suggested staying away as well. Nothing made her want to do something more than being told not to.

  ‘He had a reputation years ago as a violent drunk. Nothing that’ll be on your records. He used to drink, have a punch-up and sleep it off. We weren’t friends as such, but I knew of him. Sean was the kind of guy everyone knew of, but few were friends with.’

  ‘Is he likely to harm you?’

  ‘I don’t know. You never really know, I suppose. I just don’t want to take that risk.’

  Suzanne came back to the nearside of the bed, hitched the veil on the pole and sat down on the lilac duvet.

  ‘What’s all this about, Suzanne?’ Sarah needed some straight answers.

  ‘It’s about me, I expect. Sean’s got a thing for me. He’s fine most of the time, but every so often he gets jealous. He thinks we’ll be a couple one day, but that’s just not going to happen. It’s all my fault. If I tell you something, do you promise to keep it a secret? I mean from everyone, no police record, nothing?’

  ‘Sure.’ She meant it this time. Asking Sean about the book may have, in part, led to John’s assault. The Suzanne situation may have been the focus of his anger, but knowing John told Sarah he’d stolen something from a church couldn’t have helped his mood. Talking to John in Sally’s bathroom had reminded her how important each decision was and how the repercussions affected more than just her career; they affected everyone around her.

  Suzanne patted the bed. ‘Take a seat. Sean and I had a very short-term arrangement.’

  ‘Arrangement?’ Arrangement was an odd term. Despite never having had one, Sarah was sure words like fling and liaison were still in use. Maybe not liaison – that was saved for her favourite erotic fiction authors – but arrangement certainly wasn’t the standard euphemism. There was a long pause before she answered, one Sarah didn’t intend to break. Suzanne made sure the door was closed.

  ‘I, a while back, I had a few male friends. I mean, I slept with men. For money.’ She paused; Sarah stayed quiet, waiting for her to fill the silence her revelation created. ‘It’s not easy to admit. I wasn’t in a good place, my marriage may as well have been a sham and all I wanted was a little comfort. I just looked for it in the wrong place. I can see it now, when I look back, but back then it seemed like a great idea. I guess we all have times in our lives we feel that way about, right?’

  ‘It wasn’t for the money, as you may have guessed.’ She glanced around the room, highlighting the comfortable wealth in which she lived. ‘Sean was one of them; he hasn’t left me alone since. He’s convinced there was more to it than there was. He’s fine most of the time, but now and again feels the need to give me a torrent of abuse.’

  Sarah struggled to form a response. Part of her wanted to read Suzanne the moral riot act; the rest reminded her she was acting in a professional capacity and not out for dinner with the girls. It wasn’t the prostitution she frowned upon. There were many ways to live and, as long as someone was making a genuinely free choice to do something, they were more than entitled to do it. She didn’t like the cheating, assuming Suzanne’s husband was none the wiser. So far, Sunbury’s secrets had shown her anything was possible.

  ‘Look, before you start, I know what you’re thinking. I’m a terrible person, I’m a bad mother, or whatever. I don’t do it anymore and the thought of it makes me sick. But that’s the Sean story, and that’s why he won’t leave me alone. Like I said, none of this goes on record. I’ve had enough people telling me how they think I should live.’

  ‘I’m not going to lecture you, but you should consider making a report about Sean, just in case he decides to do something stupid.’

  ‘It sounds like he already has. I’ll be back up in a second.’ She went downstairs to check on Billy. Sarah lay back on the bed. The mattress was too soft; she preferred firmer support. She wondered what it would be like not to have to worry about money. Mark always talked about making millions. He’d quit work in favour of launching a start-up and was very driven about being in the seven-figure club. Too much money would be a burden, she thought. Once you hit a comfortable amount, adding to it stops making a difference.

  ‘Fancy a nap?’ She hadn’t heard Suzanne come back into the room.

  ‘Sorry, I was just –’

  ‘It’s okay, you’ve probably had a rough week.’

  ‘It’s been tough on everyone. Michael was well loved.’ Sarah sat back up and adjusted her blue blouse, feeling a little embarrassed about being caught lounging on the luxury bed. ‘He still sleeping soundly?’

  ‘Thankfully. It’s the quietest he’s been.’ She sat down next to Sarah and the bed bounced.

  ‘Did you know Father Michael well?’

  ‘We didn’t get along. I feel bad saying it now that he’s gone, but he had a habit of preaching about my, you know.’

  ‘He knew about? Your male friends?’ It was the politest thing she’d heard men who use prostitutes called. It suggested a far gentler situation than the sad, and often dangerous, reality.

  ‘He’d come around here from time to time. At first, I let him in. You can imagine what he said. Talked about the virtues of marriage and suchlike. So, yeah, we didn’t get on. Not enough to kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ Suzanne touched Sarah’s thigh and laughed. ‘It’s easy to forget you’re a police woman.’ There’d been a few occasions this week when she’d wished she could, too. ‘Can I ask you something? I heard a rumour. A rumour he’d been writing things down. Things people told him. Is that true?’

  ‘I can’t talk about what is or isn’t evidence in the case, I’m afraid.’ The journals were a terribly kept secret. Suzanne, Sean and John: all tied up in a violent love triangle and all taking an interest in the musings of a man they claimed to dislike.

  ‘Oh. It’s just, if he did, if he was, would I be able to read them?’

  ‘Definitely not.’ This needed to stop now. If she’d dealt with John properly, hadn’t given him the responsibility of the body, he may not have fe
lt so entitled to her returning the favour. Give Suzanne an inch now and she may try and take a mile later.

  Suzanne continued undeterred. ‘What if it was something that could be detrimental to me or my family?’

  ‘What do you think could affect your family?’ Word had got out. There was no way of knowing who else knew and how the rumour mill had churned out the story. Rumours rarely stayed the same as they started; they sprouted branches and tangents as one person passed them on to the next. Eventually, the information could become distorted and have little resemblance to the facts. Suzanne was close to the source. John knew the facts; he was there when the books were found. Those few seconds he spent reading one reignited his emotional trauma. Sean’s book could say anything. If Suzanne had heard it from him, a man who was infatuated with her and willing to brutally assault any man likely to come between them, who knew what he’d said, or even altered, to get her attention.

  ‘If there’s a trial, would something like that be read out?’

  ‘Suzanne, look, I can’t say anything. If I could, I would.’ Denying it was starting to sound ridiculous, but it was the best way to not have to make any more promises.

  ‘Will Billy find out anything about me? Trials bring everything out into the open don’t they? If there’s anything in there about me, would it be in the news?’

  ‘It’s impossible to say what’s going to happen.’ Being a hard-ass about it was tougher than she thought. Suzanne would be the envy of most people. A charmed life only to those who didn’t look so deep; the money, the beautiful home, the young family. Underneath, she worried about being accepted, whether she was good enough and her child, the same as anyone else would. Her lifestyle added a shine that made it harder to see the grime underneath, but it was still there, if anyone kept looking long enough to see it. Sarah’s short, sharp sentences were deliberately curt, said in a way that gave little recourse for conversation or discussion. She’d spoken like that to numerous drunks on the weekend late shift: shut up and get in the van. Some people only responded to that kind of direction. Suzanne wasn’t one of those. She wasn’t a thug or a belligerent protester. She was a mother, concerned that details of her past, details that were nobody’s business but hers, would be laid out for all to see. It wasn’t a selfish request; she put her son first. Billy was young now, but the ’Net never forgets.

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry I asked. It’s all getting a bit too much. First a murder, then we find out he’s been recording filthy details about us for years, now people are getting beaten up. This is a quiet town; I stayed here to avoid this kind of thing.’ Her voice quickened and she flung her hands in the air. ‘Please, please, help me. There must be something you can do.’

  ‘I promise, I’ll do everything I can to stop any damaging information coming out at the trial.’

  ‘But can you guarantee it? Doing everything you can isn’t the same as saying it won’t happen. It’s my past, my mistakes and I’ve paid the emotional price for them over and over.’

  ‘I can’t guarantee what a judge will decide is admissible. It’s too early to know what’s relevant and what isn’t. I can only promise to mention it and put your concerns across.’

  She said goodbye to Billy on the way out. He looked so peaceful, safely undisturbed by the week’s events. Suzanne apologised for getting frustrated, not offering her a cuppa and keeping her cooped up upstairs, before they said their goodbyes.

  Sarah’s next destination was on the other side of town. If this had been the end of a shift, she’d consider herself too tired to drive and get a lift home from Mark or a workmate. Here, the roads were guaranteed to be quiet, so she was willing to take the risk. News of the journals was spreading. Promising Suzanne she’d try to keep any damning information out of the public eye was a compassionate reaction to a desperate plea. She was certain Suzanne was the ‘lady of loose morals’. When she told her story, it was hard to see her that way. The relevance of those entries to any murder trial would become apparent as the case developed. She just had to catch the killer first.

  Grace’s cottage was in a terrible state. The garden was like a rotten fruit; the remnants of something beautiful had given way to mangled weeds and overgrown bushes. Corroded wooden windows framed glass thick with muck and cobwebs. The storm hadn’t helped the aesthetic, but it’d been a long time since ‘The Oaks’ was lavished with any tender, loving care. Grace answered the door in her nightgown, her wet hair plastered to the sides of her face, and carrying a bag of curlers in her hand.

  ‘Grace.’

  ‘Oh, hello dear. I don’t know anything about the claw hammer, if that’s what you’re here about.’

  ‘Claw hammer?’ She remembered the wild goose she’d sent Grace chasing. ‘Oh. The claw hammer. That’s okay, this is about something else.’

  Grace was a hoarder. Her cottage opened into the kitchen, which was covered in piles upon piles of newspapers, magazines, old books and numerous towers of cardboard boxes containing who knew what. Grace moved through it all with no trouble, but Sarah had to step cautiously for fear of knocking something that may cause all the clutter to collapse. The living room was in a similar state, with a single armchair in the centre and a small television off to the side. It couldn’t have been further from Suzanne’s pristine home she’d been at just hours before.

  ‘So, what else do you need my help with?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Mum said you had something important to say about John?’

  ‘John?’ This was going to be an exasperating process. Grace lived here, dejected amongst the clutter of her old memories, a life lived hoarding other people’s trinkets. Shelves of 12-inch records, yellowed books and commemorative crockery covered the walls. Faces stared at her from every corner: Cliff Richard and Shaking Stevens, Atticus Finch and Alan Watts, a Beefeater and The Queen. Sally hadn’t mentioned Grace’s past. Sarah knew her as the nagging nosey neighbour and hadn’t thought much about whether she’d ever been anything else. As people age they go one of three ways: senile and cantankerous, mature and intellectual, or just plain pleasant. Sally had maintained an air of glamour about her. There were some old photos knocking about her house that could be mistaken for the portrait shot of a silver-screen starlet, the soft-focus filter being the Photoshop of the day. There were no such photos here. The lounge had nothing personal at all, just face after gawking face of celebrities and other fictional characters.

  ‘Yes, John. You knew his family?’

  ‘His family? I don’t know. John, you say?’ She was either going deaf, feigning ignorance or enjoyed having someone repeat their question, giving her a fleeting sense of power and influence.

  ‘Grace. John. You know who I’m talking about.’ Not all witnesses were compliant. Suspects were easy. She knew where she stood with a suspect. They were going to lie, cry and fabricate whatever they needed to in order to avoid being slapped with a charge sheet. That was easier to work with than a non-compliant witness. Sometimes the less a suspect said, the better. If the evidence was strong, it may not matter what they say at all. Witnesses were different. The information Grace had may well be nonsense, and Sarah suspected it would be, but the investigation demanded all lines of enquiry be followed up. John didn’t seem the murdering type, she thought, and although she didn’t know quite why she felt that way, or whether anyone was truly not the murdering type at all, she trusted her instincts. Unquestioned witnesses were enough to plant doubt in a juror’s mind. Questions like ‘Why didn’t the police bother to ask?’ and ‘Don’t you think a competent officer would have?’ were a defence counsel’s wet dream. Sarah needed her to talk.

  Grace sat down, deliberately taking her time to wriggle into her armchair.

  ‘I know something that can help you. First, I want you to admit something, if you’re capable of it. Admit you lied to me, about the body.’ She nestled back in her chair. ‘I saw you that day and I knew something was up. Why you chose to deputise him when you could have picked anyone, I’ll never know. I wa
tched from the corner of the road as you carried the body wrapped in that blue plastic sheet into the house. You may have escaped the eyes of the rest of the town, but you didn’t escape mine. I’ve been here too long to have the wool pulled over my eyes, my dear.’ Sarah started to respond, but Grace spoke over her until she stopped. ‘Then you lied. A police officer shouldn’t lie. I should think Sally didn’t bring you up that way. It makes me wonder what else you’ve been lying about. What else have you kept from us?’

  Sarah tried coming up with an alternative story, but was so tired her brain refused to work quickly enough. She’d been caught out. ‘Telling everyone where Father Michael’s body is doesn’t benefit anyone. He should be in a morgue awaiting examination, I accept that, but look at the situation we’re in. There’s nowhere else I can take him. He’ll be moved as soon as the flood lifts.’

  ‘So you admit you lied? Lied straight to my face?’ That’s what this was all about. Grace hadn’t mentioned Father Michael’s dignity or what the family might think if they knew he’d been wrapped in a tent and smuggled into a shed. She wasn’t concerned about the investigation or trying to secure evidence as well as possible given the circumstances. All she wanted was to be included.

  ‘Yes. I lied. I’m not sorry; I did it for the right reasons.’ Apologising would be one step too far. Plenty of people had tried telling her how to do her job over the years. They only saw the results of the decisions and gave no thought to how difficult they were to make; only levied criticism with no suggestion of how things could be improved. She could argue her point with Grace all afternoon, but it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She’d have to justify her decisions in a courtroom once all this was over and decided to save her patience for that.

  ‘I don’t care for your apology in any case. I’ll give you your comeuppance, don’t you worry. Well, for one thing, you’ve put your trust in the wrong person, that’s for certain.’