The Translation of the Bones

by Francesca Kay

  He had nothing more to do with her until after the bank holiday. Then, because of the gravity of the case and because he was the senior consultant, he formally accepted her as a patient. At the time of her admittance, he knew only she had been taken into custody after the injury of a child. Neither he nor the police knew then that the child was dead.

  As a matter of course, a child’s death would not necessarily make front-page news. But this child was the son of a member of the Shadow Cabinet, and mortally wounded in a church. The holiday weekend held back reporting for a day, but there was no stopping it after that. Kiti Mendoza played an early part, before the full details were established. She had been met on Easter Sunday morning by a locked door, a police guard and no explanation; her immediate assumption was that the authorities were conspiring against her. All that she found, with others turning up for mass that morning, was a notice with directions to the nearest Catholic church and its service times. Father Diamond had pinned it to the main door when he got back in the early hours of the morning. Even then, he did not forget his parish duty.

  He had waited at the hospital for Stella. When she returned, still with the doctor in the blue clothes, she was unnaturally calm. The young doctor had said something about GPs and sedation but neither Father Diamond nor Stella took it in. Father Diamond did understand that they were going to move the body to a nearby hospice, where it would be laid out in a cold room. A better place for the family to come to terms and say good-bye.

  To come to terms? Father Diamond wondered at the doctor’s wording. But then, what else could this kindly but detached professional have said of this enormity, this outrage that cried out in anger against heaven?

  He drove Stella home. She opened the front door, deactivated the burglar alarm, switched on lights and led him downstairs to the kitchen, all the while apparently composed. But there were Felix’s painted eggs where he had left them, on the table. Father Diamond prayed he would never hear again the sound that Stella made when she saw them.

  He stayed with her until Rufus came. He told Rufus what had happened. Stella had not wanted him to telephone anybody else until Rufus had been told. But she was in agony for Camilla. How can she hear this when she is on her own? she howled. We’ll find someone to break it to her gently, Father Diamond promised; if there is no one else, I will go myself. He would have promised anything if it would comfort Stella. But he knew that nothing could. He held her to him, rocked her, made consoling sounds to her, made Ovaltine, as if she were his child, knowing all the time that consolation was beyond her now. Afterward he would not speak of the hours he spent with Stella. The raw mourning of a mother should not be lightly told.

  Children get stabbed all the time, Azin Qureshi’s wife said, when she saw the headline. That little boy in Hackney? Near the library, remember? Another random act of violence, another religious nutcase. What’s the big deal here?

  Was it a random act of violence? Azin Qureshi wondered. Rumors had seeped out about the child on the altar; lurid hintings at black magic and human sacrifice. One newspaper conjured up a link between this and the recent discovery of a child’s torso in the Thames. Baby body parts in voodoo ritual? it asked. This tale of two children—one the son of privilege, the other of poor immigrants—unknown to one another, linked by tragedy, was irresistibly dramatic.

  Shamso Abdi’s mother, when interviewed through an interpreter, slightly spoiled foregone conclusions by insisting that O’Reilly would not have harmed the child. The kind white woman loved him, Mrs. Abdi said. She had not felt anxious about Shamso until late that Saturday night. As far as she was concerned, he was safe with Mary-Margaret. Her other children had told her a confused story about ice creams but she had been too busy to pay heed. It was only after bedtime—which in her household was around eleven o’clock—that she began to worry. She had knocked on the O’Reillys’ door but there had been no answer. In the three years that she had lived across the way from them, Mrs. Abdi had never seen Mary-Margaret’s mother. A few nerve-racking hours had followed until, with the help of an English-speaking friend, she finally found Shamso in the care of the police. Even then she seemed to think that Mary-Margaret had been playing some strange game. Her older children, though, when questioned, claimed that Mary-Margaret had deliberately tricked them and indeed all the evidence suggested careful planning. A crumpled-up receipt for twine was in O’Reilly’s bag. The owner of the garden shop remembered her and the curly-headed kid and said she was behaving oddly. Stains on garments belonging to the church indicated preparation. And, most damningly, O’Reilly was in possession of a sharpened carving knife. No spur-of-the-moment act of madness then. The police report went promptly to the Prosecution Service. Attempted murder, murder, abduction of a child. Release on bail opposed.

  By then Azin Qureshi had carefully examined Mary-Margaret. She was capable of speech, but not of rational communication. However, he judged that she would be able to stand trial when the time came, and be fit to plead. She would be kept in a closed unit until then.

  Fear is a blind bat blundering against the tight bones of her head, a fanged thing jabbing for a way out through the jelly of her eyes, a black crow spread-winged on her mouth, a tide of blood rising in her throat and promising to choke her. She cannot think, she can scarcely see, she cannot move but she can’t stay still; she can only pray to die. Better far it would have been if she had not been born, nor Mary-Margaret conceived in a fishing boat beside the sea beneath the crying gulls.

  Fidelma could not say who had telephoned her on Sunday morning. A social worker maybe, or a woman from the police. An efficient person with a list to tick and a hundred other things to do. Her words had whipped down the line like darts—accused, alleged, suspected—spiked words, hard words, all ending in conclusive ds, repeated ds like gunfire: wounded, tied up, dead. The darts pierced Fidelma’s hearing but not her comprehension. At first she could only think there had been a serious mistake; she said so to the cool-voiced woman. But no; the woman repeated Mary-Margaret’s name and checked the telephone number. That number was in Mary-Margaret’s diary, with Fidelma’s name, in the space where it was written: In case of emergency, please notify . . .

  Fidelma closed her eyes. She could see that diary, pink, plastic-bound, embellished with the image of a kitten, its pages mainly blank. Mary-Margaret bought herself a diary every year, at the end of January, much reduced. And every year she filled in the part that called for personal details. Fidelma saw her writing, her careful, rounded hand. Every year it irked her that she did not know her blood group.

  Dimly Fidelma understood that Mary-Margaret would not be coming home that day. And nor the next it seemed, nor at any time that Miss Job-to-Do could name. You will be informed when there is information, she told Fidelma. She did not inquire if Fidelma was all right. Why should she? Fidelma was the mother of a killer and no business, in any case, of hers.

  You will be informed when there is information. Meanwhile you will receive a fistful of sharp words that sting like gravel hurled. Hospital. Psychiatric. Knife wound. Child. Stabbed.

  And in the meantime what will you do, you murderer’s mother, walled in your own flesh, sealed in your tower, unregarded by the careless world? Will you slowly starve to death, moldering in your folds of skin? Smash through the meagerly rational aperture of window with a rolling pin? Telephone for takeaways to be dropped outside your door until there is no money left to buy them? Condemned to death; well there are worse fates, surely. Except that, in the rightful way, a woman bound to die would do so in the dawn, accompanied by jailers, hangmen, a black-clad priest with a prayer book and a look of pity in his eye. Not all alone, and step by step, as she must. And Mary-Meg, your poor suffering and murderous daughter? Doomed to die as well?

  Mary-Margaret rocked herself a little, on her chair. It occurred to her that she might suck her thumb. Then she decided not to; instead she would pay attention to the doctor. She had already seen him quite a few times but until today she hadn�
�t really been able to summon up the energy to talk. Today she felt she’d better, because she wanted him to stop the pills that they kept giving her to make her sleep. She couldn’t sleep, you see, because she kept seeing pictures. To tell the truth, she saw pictures in the day as well. When she was awake, that is. Or sleeping. Waking or sleeping it was lovely seeing the pictures. The little boy. The little boy in his mother’s arms. Who would have known it of Mrs. Morrison? Mrs. Morrison who probably didn’t even know Mary-Margaret’s name until the day she broke her head falling off the altar. But who had anyway been kind. Smiled nicely, when they met. Which was not very often, as a matter of fact. But even so. Mary-Margaret had admired her. She was very pretty. And well-dressed. And very good at doing flowers. When she passed she left a lingering scent, like the scent you sometimes catch when walking past posh gardens. There is something that smells sweet in the winter. Not particularly showy—small white flowers. Anyway. Mrs. Morrison. Who would have thought it? However nice she was and sweet she smelled. Mrs. Stella Morrison. Mother of God.

  There were the pictures. And the sounds. So she didn’t only have to keep her eyes wide open but her ears as well, in case He might send another message. The little boy telling her to stop. That was God’s voice in the boy, that was. She didn’t know his name. Mrs. Morrison’s son. She’d never seen him in her life. She’d seen the daughter once, but not the little son. She could ask his name; the doctor would know, perhaps. Perhaps he’d say it anyway, in passing, when he was asking questions.

  He did ask questions, quite a lot: how are you, how are you feeling, are you feeling better? Are you managing to sleep? Mary-Margaret liked him. He had a kind face. And, to be honest, he was not bad-looking. Actually, he was quite good-looking, considering. And he had lovely hands. Thin brown fingers which he brought together in a steeple, sometimes, and held beneath his chin, as if he were about to pray.

  Did people of his sort pray? To elephants, maybe. She’d seen the pictures. Blue-faced gods. With lots of limbs. Nice eyes. The doctor, not the gods. Thick eyelashes, and long. Wasted on a man.

  One question he asked every time: is there anything you’d like to tell me?

  Yes there is, she’d say today. Yes. There is. I was never going to hurt him. God was going to stop me. And He did.

  This is the church and this is the steeple. Where had she learned that rhyme? It had finger movements with it.

  Here is the church, and here is the steeple;

  Open the door and here are the people.

  Here is the parson going upstairs,

  And here he is a-saying his prayers.

  Were his prayers no more than empty words flung into the wind? In the days that followed Felix’s death, Father Diamond felt the gates of heaven had slammed shut or, worse, had closed on emptiness, had never led to anything at all. He tried to pray. It was his duty to say mass on Easter Sunday, but he could not do it. Instead he went to the church across the river, to which he had diverted his parishioners. A solemn mass at eleven; white vestments, candles, lilies; reminders of the ones he had abandoned in his sealed church. The risen Christ? By rising He has conquered death, the celebrant intoned, and Father Diamond, kneeling at the back with his head buried in his hands, was torn between tears and laughter.

  Later, when he had completed yet another interview with the police, he got into his car and headed east. He had no destination in mind; he knew only that he wanted to be by himself and moving. After some hours he pulled off the main road at a sign which he thought said something about marshes. He must have misread it; he found he was in a run-down industrial estate. It was deserted, on a Sunday. At the edge of the estate he stopped the car, suddenly aware that he was desperately tired and thirsty and needed to relieve himself. It was late in the afternoon. Out of the confines of the car he smelled marsh water on the air, mud and something rotting cleanly, like fresh compost. A skein of geese flew overhead, clacking loudly to each other. He lifted an already loosened strand of barbed wire from the perimeter fence to make a gap that he could climb through. As he did the wire snagged on his jacket. He pulled himself free and felt it tear. A man of rags and tatters; how appropriate, he thought.

  The wasteland he walked through was miry but there were marsh marigolds and water violets among the scrubby grass and windblown litter. In this abandoned place he cried out loud. Why? he asked. When Jairus’s daughter died, you took her by the hand and told her to get up. Little girl, you said. Give her something to eat, you said. You called Lazarus from his tomb. You promised that not one sparrow worth two farthings would be forgotten under God. All your domestic miracles. But you let this child go. You let him bleed to death while I stood by and could do nothing. Or did nothing. As helpless as a scarecrow, as pathetic. You let him die. Why didn’t you breathe your breath into his lungs before it was too late, stop him bleeding with your blood, bring him back to life?

  The mothers of murdered children often say: he was an angel who did not deserve to die. No one deserves to die, least of all a child with his whole life before him. Why? His blood is on me, and if it tests my faltering faith, what will it do then to his mother? To his sister, where she mourns alone? To his father and his brother? How dare you talk of triumph over death when this sinless child is gone?

  Father Diamond tramped across the marshy waste ground and heard nothing. No voice came in answer to his questions. But at least he’d voiced them; and the wind blew sea-whispers to him and at the end of this long day he would be tired enough to sleep.

  It was Mrs. Armitage who recalled Fidelma. She had gone round to the church as usual on the Thursday morning after Easter because she knew it was important to keep to her routine and she wanted to give Father Diamond an invitation. I know you won’t feel like a party, she told him. I don’t either, to be honest. But Fraser’s coming home. We want to welcome him.

  Have you spoken to him?

  Yes. He called, when he got to Malta. Said it was good to get the dust washed off. He’ll be flying back as planned. Brize Norton. We’re going to have a little get-together next Friday. Family and close friends.

  Thank you, Father Diamond said. I’m honored to be asked. I’m glad he’s on his way back home. And of course you have to kill the fatted calf . . . He stopped, and they did not meet each other’s eyes as the unwanted implication of his words sank in.

  Mrs. Armitage changed the subject. Any word of the wretched woman’s mother? She’s an invalid, I think.

  Father Diamond had not given Mary-Margaret’s mother any thought. In the distribution of their duties she was Father O’Connor’s—he had never met her himself. But he did know from Father O’Connor that she was housebound.

  I expect Social Services will be looking after her, he said.

  I wouldn’t be so sure, warned Alice Armitage. An elephant could slip through the holes in some of their nets, from what I’ve heard.

  All right, said Father Diamond. I’ll visit. Tomorrow afternoon.

  Good on you, Alice said. Let me know if she’s all right. If not, I can always pop up there as well—although, from the look of things and the terrible job she must have done as that loony’s mother, she should be left to stew a bit, perhaps.

  We’ll see, said Father Diamond.

  We will, said Alice Armitage. Now come and see how beautifully the floor’s scrubbed up. She led him by the arm to the place by the altar where Felix had bled. It was a little lighter than its surround from her fierce scrubbing.

  Well done, said Father Diamond.

  But that reminds me. I nearly forgot. I haven’t managed so nicely with the altar cloth. The one out of the chapel.

  Father Diamond did not remember what had happened to the cloth. She reminded him: the one that the O’Reilly woman messed up when she fell. All stained with blood. No amount of bleach had worked.

  Forget it, Father Diamond said. It’s only a piece of cloth.

  Well, we’re almost back to normal, aren’t we? Mrs. Armitage asked the priest. Now the police have g
one?

  Yes, he said, noticing for the first time how tired and strained she looked. Afterward he found she’d tucked a bunch of tulips and a teddy by the altar.

  Fidelma heard the knock at the door and ignored it. It came again. A third time, harder. She blocked her ears with her hands. If she stopped listening, whoever it was would go away. On the other side of the door, Father Diamond hesitated. When there was no answer after his third try, he felt a strong sense of relief. Mrs. O’Reilly must be out. But then he remembered she was housebound. A vision came to him of people left to die alone and rot. Decomposing bodies found only when their neighbors could no longer bear the smell. Kept herself to herself, these neighbors said, explaining why they had not noticed sooner. A very private person. Mrs. O’Reilly might be dying, he thought. He had to keep on trying.

  Fidelma took her hands from her ears and breathed again. The knocking had stopped. She was feeling wobbly, truth to tell, having emptied the kitchen cupboards of everything except Mary-Margaret’s bottle of Irish Cream. Mary-Margaret had been gone almost a week. Or more perhaps? Fidelma was losing track of time. No one had telephoned her since Miss Jobsworth. They had no information to inform her, she supposed. Nights had followed days and she had stayed in silence, but for the thudding of her heart and the beat of panic in her veins. Over the last day or so she had begun to feel a little calmer. That might be because she wasn’t hungry any longer. She was doing fine on little sips of whiskey with sweet cream.

  Then she jumped out of her skin. The person at her door was now clattering the metal flap of the letter box and making a fiendish din. Mrs. O’Reilly, he was shouting. Are you there? Please let me in.

  How much longer would he stay there? It made her shiver to think of a stranger lurking by her door. She waited. The voice said: if you’re not well enough to speak, don’t worry. I’m going to find a caretaker and a key.