Eager to Please

by Julie Parsons

  ‘To be honest, we haven’t a clue.’ He sniffed the smoky-bacon flavour of the Earl Grey, turning down the offer of milk.

  ‘Was she killed down there?’ She picked up the binoculars and fiddled with the focus.

  ‘You tell me. At this point in time you probably know more about it than I do.’

  ‘Well, I’d say, if you want my opinion, she wasn’t,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised how quiet it is here at night-time. I don’t sleep much any longer. Not now I’ve the sleep of eternity waiting for me just around the corner. I’ve often seen people going into those bushes. Often. But I’ve always seen them come out again.’

  He asked Johnny Harris the same question. Was she killed down there, among the briars and the nettles?

  He shook his head. ‘I’d say not. I’d say from the distribution of blood in her tissues that she was lying there for three, maybe four or even five days. I’d say she was placed there, rather than dumped. The way she was lying was a bit too careful if you see what I mean. On her back, her arms folded, her legs together. I’d say she was put there before rigor mortis set in. Easier to handle her that way. That would make it within seven hours or so of death. And another thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She was washed. It’s normal in these situations for the bowel and bladder to evacuate. But there’s no sign of urine or faeces on her body. Also she was raped. Vaginally and anally. Considerable force was used. It looks to me like she was penetrated with something sharp. A small knife, perhaps, or a scissors. But again, all blood has been washed away. She’s very clean, apart, that is, from the inevitable decomposition. And before you ask, no, there’s no semen.’

  ‘And how did she die? Did she die from the rape?’

  ‘No. She was strangled. From the abrasions it looks to me like it was something like a clothes line. A synthetic material that burns the flesh easily.’

  ‘So it wasn’t the tie?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The marks on her neck aren’t consistent with that type of cloth. But it’s interesting, unusual, the way that the tie has been twisted through her fingers. Like so.’

  He pulled back the covering green sheet and lifted up her small hands. He separated her fingers to demonstrate. Jack felt his knees soften and weaken, the sweat break out on his forehead. He forced himself to look.

  ‘She’s very fair, isn’t she? Is her hair naturally that colour?’

  ‘Completely. Very unusual. She reminds me of a Swedish girlfriend I had once. Practically white her hair was.’

  They stood in silence. The girl’s hair was long and very thick. It was parted in the middle. It lay now on either side of her small heart-shaped face.

  ‘What else can you tell me?’

  Johnny Harris sighed. ‘She was pregnant. About twelve weeks, I’d say. She also had some liver damage consistent with alcohol or drug abuse. And there are scars on her arms, here. See?’ He pointed to the marks in the crook of her elbow.

  ‘But she’s clean. No heroin. No drugs at all. Not now anyway. And she’s healthy apart from all that. And well looked after.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Her teeth. Regular visits to the dentist. A few fillings, but not many. And some evidence that she’d had orthodontic treatment at some stage in her life. And see here, these teeth at the side.’ He pulled open her mouth and pointed with the end of his biro. ‘The X-rays show that she’s had root-canal fillings and crowns. Very expensive. If you’re asking my opinion, I’d say she was once a nice middle-class girl.’

  Which wasn’t what the fingerprints showed. The fingerprints told a different story. Within the last three years she had been arrested fifteen times. For possession of heroin, for possession with intent to supply, with soliciting, with assault, with larceny. Pearse Street had her records, her photograph and her name.

  ‘Judith Hill? Jesus. We know her well.’ The station sergeant looked at him in amazement. ‘And you’re telling me that Judith’s dead? A year or so ago I wouldn’t have been surprised. She was up to her neck in an awful load of shit. But she’s been on the straight and narrow for the last while. Ever since she came out of prison. She’s even going to college. Trinity, would you believe? Just across the road so she can drop in from time to time and say hallo. Not.’ He paused and sniggered, then looked down at the file on the counter in front of him, turning it around so Jack could see the picture clearly. ‘Christ, are you sure it’s Judith? I only saw her recently. Last week or the week before. She was looking great. Oh, good God almighty, her father will go mad.’

  Her father, Dr Mark Hill. His name, followed by a string of letters, on the brass plate screwed to the front railings of the tall red-brick house in the quiet square in Rathmines. It was late now. After ten. Jack slumped in the passenger seat of the car, while Tom Sweeney parked it carefully.

  ‘I hate this,’ he said. ‘I fucking hate this.’ It was later still by the time he got home to the apartment overlooking the harbour. Such a relief to be on his own. No need to explain himself, make excuses, justify his sour mood. He walked into the bathroom, shedding his clothes, dropping them in small heaps on the floor. He turned on the taps. He walked back into the kitchen. He poured a double measure of gin into a tall glass, added ice and tonic, and a slice of lime. He drank half of it in one swallow and topped it up again. He got into the bath, lay back and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about all that had happened tonight, but it wouldn’t go away. The scene kept on replaying itself over and over against his closed eyelids. The father’s denial, his refusal to accept that it might be his daughter who was dead. His insistence that she had changed. She wasn’t involved in any of that ‘business’, as he called it, any longer.

  ‘So have you seen her recently, have you spoken to her at all?’

  Well, no, he hadn’t. But she wasn’t living at home at the moment. She’d moved into rooms in college to be close to her brother. He’d been helping her with her exams.

  ‘But it isn’t term time now, Dr Hill, is it?’

  Well, no, he agreed. But she had said she wanted to do some extra work, preparation for next term. She’s very dedicated, he said. She’s studying history of art. She loves it. And she knows that she’s wasted so much time with all that ‘business’. She wants to make up for it.

  ‘And boyfriends, other friends, anyone who was close to her?’

  There was no one, he said, just her brother Stephen. They’re very close.

  And Jack especially didn’t want to think about what had happened in the mortuary. When Dr Hill gazed down at his daughter’s face. He had expected the usual. Shock, horror, tears. But not anger. Not rage. Not disgust. Not the words that poured from the man’s mouth, in an unstoppable torrent. Words that made them all, Jack, Johnny Harris, Tom Sweeney, draw back and away.

  ‘You little bitch. You little savage. How could you do this to me? After all I’ve gone through for you. You promised me. You said you’d never do this again. You said you’d be good. The way you used to be. You said you’d given all that up. You said you were going to live your life my way now. That I would be proud of you. That I would be able to hold my head up for you. And now look at you, you little bitch. I hate you so much. I can’t bear it.’

  And for one dreadful moment he reached out towards her, his hands grasping the sheet which covered her body. His fingers twisting the heavy fabric, pulling. Until Johnny Harris stepped forward, put his hand on his arm and said, ‘That’s enough, that’s quite enough. At least leave her with some dignity.’

  And then there were tears, and gasping sobs, and a sound of pain, a moan that came from deep inside him, as he sank to his knees on the cold tiled floor.

  They drove him back to his front door. They offered to phone for help. Friends, family, anyone. But he got out of the car without answering. It was Sweeney who spoke first, who broke the silence as they stopped at the traffic lights.

  ‘Did he do it?’

  Jack shrugged. He let his
breath out in a long sigh. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. But we’ll be back to him in the morning, ask him to give us a sample for DNA, sort out who the baby’s father is. We’ll have a go at the house. Quickly before he realizes what we’re at. Talk to her mother. There’s been no mention of her so far. And don’t forget there’s the brother. He probably knows a lot more about Judith than daddy-oh. Do you want to have a crack at him or will I?’

  It was very quiet now. No sound from the car park outside. No sound of traffic from the street. He got out of the bath and wrapped a towel around his waist. He poured himself another large gin, then pushed open the door to his small balcony. The sweet smell of night-scented stock wafted into the room. A present from Ruth, the older of his daughters. She had grown them herself from seed. He stepped out on to the balcony and sat down. So she’d been in prison a number of times. Johnny Harris had called her a nice middle-class girl. There weren’t many of them inside. What was it the prison governor always said about the inmates? That they all came from Dublin’s four inner-city postal districts. Not from the nice suburb where the Hills lived. Or for that matter from the area a couple of miles from here where Rachel Beckett had lived. A coincidence or what? He’d ring Andy Bowen first thing. Someone else to be put on his list for questioning.

  He picked up his glass and swirled the ice cubes around. The doors to the balcony next door opened, and light and music came flooding out. And the sound of voices, laughing, then silence, then other sounds, so familiar. He listened. He wanted to hear. He wanted to imagine what it was like. The ice cubes melted in his drink, and a cold chill crept down his bare back. But he didn’t get up. He didn’t go inside. He waited until it was all over. And he had got what he needed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE TIE WAS the same. The same narrow diagonal stripes of red, grey and dark green against a dark brown background. Except that now there were two of them. One was crumpled and stained and in the plastic evidence bag which Jack had in his briefcase. The other was pressed and clean, slipped beneath the collar and flattened down over the buttons of the white shirt that Dr Mark Hill was wearing beneath his navy-blue blazer.

  The tie was the first thing that Jack saw when Dr Hill answered his knock early the next morning. He waited until the pleasantries had been observed, and he was sitting with a cup of tea in the small dark kitchen at the back of the house, before he mentioned it.

  ‘You don’t mind if we stay in here, do you, Inspector, um, what did you say your name was?’

  Jack told him for, he was sure, the fifth time.

  ‘Ah yes, Donnelly, of course. You don’t mind it in here, I hope? The housekeeper comes today and tidies up for me. I’m not very good at that sort of thing, so the rest of the house isn’t really presentable.’

  Jack nodded sympathetically.

  ‘And your wife, Judith’s mother? Is she here?’

  Dr Hill gazed at the worn quarry tiles on the floor. When he spoke his voice was bitter. ‘My wife, Judith’s mother. Not my favourite topic of conversation. We’ve been separated for many years, since the children were quite young. She lives in England. We don’t have any contact. I prefer not to think of her.’ He sipped his tea, a look of distaste on his fleshy features.

  He preferred, it seemed to Jack, not to think of many things. He preferred not to talk about Judith’s drug addiction, her prostitution, assault and larceny charges. He preferred not to say where she had been for the last couple of weeks. Who her friends were. What kind of person she was. What sort of life she was leading. Her pregnancy. And above all, he preferred not to discuss her death. As the list of Jack’s questions grew, the look of distaste on his face grew too.

  Jack placed his cup and saucer on the kitchen table. He reached down and took the plastic bag from his briefcase. He rested it on his knees. He cleared his throat.

  ‘I’m wondering, Dr Hill, about this.’ He tapped the plastic with his fingertip. ‘I had hoped that I might find some explanation for it in the answers to my questions. But I haven’t. So I must ask you, can you identify it?’ He held it out to him. He watched as the doctor took it tentatively in his large hands. He turned it over, then got up and went to the window, holding it out towards the light.

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It’s a Trinity tie. Like this one, the one I’m wearing.’

  ‘So it is.’ Jack rocked gently on his stool. ‘And do you know where it was found?’

  If he had been expecting an emotional response, he’d come to the wrong place. Hill looked at it again, then handed it back to him.

  ‘There are,’ he said, the distaste now spreading into his voice, ‘at a rough estimate, probably twenty thousand such ties in existence. What does it have to do with me?’

  ‘You didn’t notice?’ Jack picked it up again and shook the tie around inside the bag. ‘Here, see that, see that name tape. Recognize it? What does it say? Let me see.’ He paused. ‘Mark Patrick Hill. Now who could that possibly be?’

  A look of consternation passed across the man’s face, and his voice when he spoke was low and, for the first time, hesitant. ‘Where,’ he asked, ‘where did you say you found it?’

  ‘Did you get much out of the brother?’ It was lunch-time and Jack was hungry. Last night’s gin had taken its toll and his stomach felt empty and hollow. He took a large mouthful of roast beef and mashed potato, washed it down with a long swallow of cold milk and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. It was ages since he’d eaten in town. He must remember, he thought, to congratulate the guys in Pearse Street for recommending this pub. The food was great. Straightforward, uncomplicated, just what a hangover needed.

  Sweeney shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not much. He’s very shocked by it all. Kept on bursting into tears. Couldn’t think straight, so he said. I’ll tell you one thing about him though, he’s the image of his sister. Same colouring, same build, same look. They could be twins.’

  ‘I assume it’s their mother they take after. Not much of the father there.’

  ‘He didn’t say. I asked him about her. He was very circumspect. All he said was that the parents had split up when he and Judith were small. The mother had gone to England. And then there was a bit of a to-do about custody. Apparently the father got it, but she came back and snatched them. He says he doesn’t really remember much about it. Except that after that they didn’t see her at all.’

  ‘And Judith, what did he tell you about her? Did he know she was pregnant?’

  ‘He says not. He was very shocked when I told him. He became practically hysterical.’

  ‘Any suggestions as to who might be the father?’

  ‘Nah, nothing. He’d nothing to say about other friends, boyfriends, the drugs and all that carry-on. He wasn’t involved at all, he said, not his scene. He said she’d left it all behind, that she was a dedicated student. He kept on saying, she promised me, she promised me.’

  ‘Did you get to see her rooms?’

  Sweeney nodded, his mouth full.

  ‘And?’ Jack shovelled the last of the meat into a heap on his fork.

  Sweeney swallowed, then burped.

  ‘Jesus, Tom, give us a break.’ Jack flapped his hand at him in mock disgust.

  ‘Sorry, boss, sorry.’ He gulped some water. ‘Well, apparently she’d been writing some kind of essay about this biblical character, Judith. Anyway, there are a number of well-known paintings, so the brother said, that show this Judith character in the process of killing someone. Very fucking bloodthirsty. All done in a good cause, of course, to save her tribe from annihilation. You know the kind of thing, invites him into her tent, gets him drunk, then offs him. Great big bloody sword. Chops off his head. She had prints of them stuck up all over the place. Put you off your lunch.’

  Judith and Holofernes, that was it. The widow using her womanly wiles to save her people. Summoned to the chieftain’s bed. Intent on murder. He knew the paintings. He’d seen them that morning reproduced in a book that was lying on the table in Dr Hill’s kitchen
. He’d opened it, idly flicking over the pages while he waited for Hill to come back from making a phone call. He’d noticed the inscription on the title page: To Elizabeth, who knows how to love. Forever, Mark.

  He’d waited for Hill. He wanted to confirm with him that he’d come into the station. To be fingerprinted. To have a DNA test. To cooperate with their investigation. But Hill had insisted on phoning his solicitor.

  ‘Fine,’ Jack said. ‘Go ahead. He can come with you, if you like. I’ll just wait here until it’s all sorted out.’

  And while he waited he had turned over the pages, looking at the paintings.

  ‘And,’ Sweeney put his hand into his pocket, ‘I’ve got something for you. I know your interest in this, so I thought I’d give you a bit of a treat. Here.’ He handed him a photograph. ‘It was stuck on to one of those pegboard things. In her room.’

  Two women. One older, one younger. Their surroundings were drab, nondescript. They were looking, not at the camera, but at each other. They were smiling, happy. Their arms were around each other’s waists. The older woman was taller and very thin. Her hair was thick and wavy, greying. The younger woman’s hair was long and straight, white blonde, parted in the centre so it lay evenly on either shoulder.

  ‘Well, what do you know? Nice middle-class girls together. Just as I thought.’ Jack laughed out loud and turned the picture over. There was an inscription on the back: Me and Rachel. Joyful Days!! August, 1997.

  ‘And what did the brother say about that? Anything interesting?’ Jack had started on dessert. Apple tart and a lavish helping of cream.

  ‘Nah.’ Sweeney shook his head. ‘Just said it was some woman who Judith had made friends with in prison. Didn’t seem to know anything else.’

  ‘And did you ask him if—’

  ‘Of course I did, of course I asked him.’ Sweeney snorted with indignation. ‘I was just about to tell you. I asked him if she’d seen her recently. He said he didn’t know. But then he sort of blushed. You know, he’s got that kind of skin, very pale, the slightest thing makes him colour up. And then he said that he knew that Judith wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with people she knew from prison. That it was a condition of her early release. That she was still on probation. So,’ Sweeney reached over, took the spoon from Jack’s hand and helped himself to a dollop of cream, ‘what do you think?’