Authors: Julie Parsons
She stepped closer and closer. Still they did not see her. She looked around once again. The mother was bending over the baby. He was crying. He sounded tired, fractious. Off in the distance she
could see the people with the dog. They were far away now. They would not hear, no one would hear the double splash as the two children hit the water, as they thrashed and struggled, their legs and
arms making the sea white with foam. And she would be there too. Wading in, wet to her knees, her thighs, losing her balance so she could no longer stand, her feet no longer able to grip the shiny,
slippery stones beneath. Beginning to swim, reaching out for the children. Taking a deep breath and diving, reaching out and pulling them down to her, holding them close to her, their bodies limp
now as all the air was pushed from them by the steady flow of the sea.
No one would ever see, no one would ever know. I did everything I could, I tried, I tried, she would say. Watching the grief on their faces.
And then the girl, Laura, looked up, turned her face towards her and called out, ‘Rachel, look at this. Isn’t it great? And isn’t my bit the best, much better than his?
Aren’t I the cleverest?’
A look on her round face that Rachel had seen before. So many times.
‘Look, Mummy, look what I’ve done.’
‘Look, Mummy, look at this.’
‘Look, Mummy, am I good? Am I a good girl? Am I the best girl?’
She squatted down beside her, so the sea water pulled at her own ankles and legs, licking the hem of her trousers, and put her arms around the small solid body, feeling the smoothness of her
skin against her cheek, as she whispered so only Laura could hear, ‘You’re wonderful, my sweetest heart, you’re the best. Always. The best.’
‘I’
VE ASKED YOU
both to be here to witness this search.’ It was early morning, eight-thirty. Bright outside, although already the sky
was beginning to fill with threatening dark clouds. Jack stood in the sitting room in the Hills’ house in Rathmines. Dr Hill and his son Stephen stood before him. Their expressions were sour
and unhelpful.
‘I’ve asked you to be here, as I said, to witness this search which I am about to undertake of the house, the gardens and the garage. I am informing you that I have the necessary
documents to authorize this action. I have obtained a search warrant from the District Court for this purpose. You will be told of any objects that we wish to remove from these premises. I am sure
that you will cooperate fully.’ And even if you don’t, he thought, looking at their faces, trying to read the mixture of emotions which paraded across them, even if you don’t, you
can do fuck all about it.
Dr Hill spoke first. ‘I don’t understand why this is necessary. I cannot believe that you seriously think that Judith was killed in this house. And by implication that I, or Stephen,
had something to do with her death. We have both told you what we know. We have both been as helpful as we can to you and your,’ he paused as if to gather breath, ‘your ridiculous
investigation. It is as plain as the nose on your face that this terrible crime had absolutely nothing to do with any civilized person, and everything to do with the scum, the gutter rats, the
prison fodder with whom she spent two years of her life.’
Would that it was that simple, Jack thought. He cleared his throat.
‘You may think that, Dr Hill, and that is the way it may appear. And please accept that I understand your grief and how you must feel at having lost your daughter in this way. I too am a
father. And I have seen many others suffer what you are suffering. But try to look at it from where I’m standing. If you consider the evidence so far, from our point of view, you may see it
very differently. For example, we have established that Judith was strangled, and that she was strangled with a length of rope. The kind that is commonly used as a clothes line. We have already,
with your permission, taken a sample from your clothes line, and we have noticed that a piece was cut off the excess of it, and it matches, I’m sorry to say, perfectly, the piece that was
used to kill your daughter. We know, roughly speaking, the time frame in which Judith died. And we have witnesses, your neighbours, who will say that they saw her here, in the house, during those
couple of days. One neighbour is very specific. She says that as it happens it was her birthday and Judith called in with a bunch of flowers for her.’
He paused and looked at them again. He was interested in the difference in their expressions. Stephen Hill now looked bored and disinterested. He yawned, openly, exposing his small white teeth
in a way that reminded Jack uncomfortably of Judith’s, the way she had looked in the morgue when Johnny Harris pulled back her lips to reveal her gums. Sweeney was right. Brother and sister
were very alike. The doctor, on the other hand, was nervous. He tapped his foot impatiently and fiddled with his tie, his belt, his expandable watchstrap, and one hand slipped into his trouser
pocket and jingled the coins.
‘And then,’ Jack took out his notebook, flicking through the pages, ‘and then there is the question of the blood group of the foetus. The baby boy that Judith was carrying. The
baby’s blood group was O. The same group as Judith. And also the same group as both of you.’
‘What on earth are you suggesting?’ Dr Hill straightened up. His face was suddenly red. ‘Do my ears deceive me? Can you be saying what I think you’re saying? Can you
really be suggesting that my daughter, Stephen’s sister was carrying a child fathered by either of us? You’re mad, that’s what you are, Inspector Donnelly, stark, staring, raving
mad.’
‘Really? Is that what you think? And you, Stephen, what do you think?’
Stephen Hill looked at him for a moment, then smiled. ‘I think, Inspector Donnelly, that these days there are tests which are a lot more refined, a lot more conclusive than the crude blunt
instrument of forensic science that you are wielding. So I suggest, before you make any more accusations, that you use them.’
Touché, Jack thought, you little bollocks. And wondered just how long it would be before they got the results of the DNA analysis that they had requested. Join the queue, was the response
from the forensic laboratory. Helpful as always.
‘All right.’ Jack moved towards the door. ‘Why don’t we just get on with it?’
There were five detectives in all making their way systematically through the house. They knew what to look for. Anything. Anything at all. But in particular they wanted a match with the sheet
in which the girl had been wrapped. A knife or scissors, some sharp cutting object whose blades matched the cuts inside her vagina and anus. Any traces of blood, no matter how small. And anything
else, useful or otherwise.
He walked through the hall towards the staircase which curved upwards. Dr Hill had made as if to come with him, but Jack had put him off. Said he’d prefer it if he stayed downstairs. Asked
him to explain the layout of the house. Then left him drinking tea with Sweeney.
Downstairs there was a small study, two large interconnecting rooms – a sitting room and dining room – and a dark poky kitchen. All were furnished with heavy antiques. Mahogany table
and sideboard, high-backed sofas and chairs covered with faded chintzes, and sombre portraits that gazed down on every side. The garden outside was neglected and overgrown. Two apple trees heavy
with fruit stood in the middle of the lawn. And on either side were long herbaceous borders, the plants smothered with bindweed and dock. Behind was the garage, a substantial brick building. Jack
noticed that those of the neighbouring houses had all been converted into architect-designed mews.
Upstairs on the first floor there were four bedrooms and a large bathroom. Jack could see that very little had been done to change the basic structure and fabric of the house over the years. The
walls were covered in faded flowery paper. The carpets were threadbare. There didn’t appear to be central heating, and the bathroom was spartan in its fittings. A large freestanding bath, a
heavy enamel hand basin, and next door a separate lavatory, with a cistern fitted high on the wall. Above again, up a smaller staircase, there were three more rooms.
‘There’s nothing up there,’ Hill had told him. ‘Just a couple of rooms that were servants’ quarters. In the days when you could get servants, that is. And
there’s a storeroom too. Lots of old junk and rubbish. I keep on meaning to get around to clearing it all out, but somehow or other I never have the time.’
‘And Judith’s room, which was hers?’
‘When she came out of prison first I made her sleep in the room next to mine. I wanted to be able to keep an eye on her. So I suppose that’s what you could call hers. She’s
been living in college for the last few months and she’s taken a lot of her books, clothes, personal things there with her. You won’t find much of anything there.’
He was right about that. It was a small narrow room and it was virtually empty. A high old-fashioned bed, neatly made, faced the door, flanked by a chest of drawers on one side and a small table
on the other. The room was painted a dull cream. A faded rug covered the black-painted floorboards. The walls were bare. No posters, pictures, decoration of any kind. A tall dark wardrobe was
pushed behind the door. He opened it and stepped back in surprise as he saw his own reflection swing suddenly into view in the full-length mirror inside. He smiled at himself and straightened his
tie. He didn’t look so bad these days, he thought. Given what he’d been through recently. Especially given that he didn’t have a clue who had killed Judith Hill.
And there were no clues here. A couple of pairs of faded jeans hung on wire coat-hangers. There was a coat of some kind of tweed and beside it a green wool blazer with a school crest on the top
pocket. That was all. He stepped back and let the door fall shut again. There wasn’t much of use in this spartan, cell-like place. No books, no letters, no diaries or notebooks. Hardly even
any clothes. And they hadn’t found too much either in her room in college. A lot of library books, lecture notes, and a box containing computer disks. Sweeney had scanned through them. All
the files were related to her studies. Jack was surprised there was no diary of any kind. She seemed, he thought, for no particular reason, like the kind of kid who would have kept one. But they
found nothing of that nature. And no letters either. No references to her mother, father or brother, at all. And none to Rachel or anyone else connected with her time inside.
He had tried again to get Dr Hill to talk about his wife. But he had drawn a complete blank.
‘I have nothing to say on that subject. As far as I am concerned the woman no longer exists.’
Stephen Hill was equally reticent. ‘My mother,’ he said, pursing his lips. ‘Now to whom exactly would you be referring?’
‘But she was there, at Judith’s funeral.’
‘Was she? I didn’t notice.’
‘And your father, does he feel the same way as you?’
Stephen smiled, a narrow rictus of the face and lips. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘is a passionate man. He is capable of great love and of equally great hate.’
And a possessive man too? Jack pondered the question as he stood in the doorway of the room at the top of the house. It must have once been an attic. The beams and timbers of the roof were
exposed, and a large dormer window had been let into them. North-facing, he reckoned, so the light that came through the panes was pure and clear, untainted by the gold of direct sunshine. It fell
now upon a large easel that stood in the middle of the floor. And lit up the canvas which rested against its uprights. Jack stepped forward and looked at it closely. It was a painting of two
children. It was unfinished, he could see that, but it was still very beautiful. The children gazed into the eyes of the viewer, and as he moved away from them their gaze moved with him. He could
feel their eyes on his back as he walked slowly around the room. Looking at the shelves, the stacks of canvases, some framed, others rolled and standing in bundles, the boxes of paints and brushes,
the piles of paper of differing weights and gauges. In one corner was some kind of a press, ink-stained, and beside it a large rectangular sink. He leaned over it and smelt immediately the pungent
stench of acid. There was a row of black and white photographs framed on one wall. He could see immediately who they were. Judith and Stephen as babies and small children. And Mark Hill too as a
young man, handsome and strong in swimming trunks and tennis whites. And sitting on a canvas stool outside a small tent, tending a Primus stove, waving a wooden spoon in one hand, and laughing. In
one corner of the room was what looked like a large cupboard, surrounded with black curtains. When he pushed them aside he found a photographic enlarger, a workbench, and a sink with running water.
Everywhere there was paint. Spattered and dripped all over the floor, the work surfaces, even on the walls up to waist level. And such colours. Blues, greens, bright yellows and purples. And above
all reds. Scarlets, vermilions, crimsons, and a red the colour of ox blood, deep and dark. What a strange man, Jack thought as he stared around him. He hates his wife so much that he won’t
even mention her name, and yet he has kept all this untouched for years and years and years. Possession by proxy, would that be it?
He leant over and looked down at the dark red drops that formed a haphazard pattern over the bare floorboards. They were slightly raised, slightly bubbled. He scratched at them with his
fingertips and saw that they had coloured the edge of his nails. He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. There was no characteristic smell of paint. Just another smell like an old-fashioned
butcher’s shop. He stood up and took a clean handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his fingers carefully on it, looking at the smears of red across the white cotton. He walked over to the
workbench. There was a row of tools lying neatly in place. A couple of sharp knives, and a number of gouges of different sizes with wooden handles. The kind that were used for making lino cuts, he
thought, remembering art classes at school. He picked them up carefully, one by one, using his handkerchief to handle them. He thought of the way the lino would peel up from the tile in a thick
coil of brown. He walked to the centre of the room, underneath the skylight. He held each of them up and noticed that the largest had a fine line of red trapped between the edge of the metal and
the wood into which it was set. He laid it down again, carefully, on the bench. Below was a row of long drawers. He pulled each open in turn. The top two contained drawings, nature studies of
plants and animals. Very beautiful, very detailed. The next had paintings, sketches in watercolours, faded now, muted and delicate. He bent down to pull open the one at the bottom. It was filled
with sheets and sheets of paper, all blank as far as he could see. He reached down and flicked through them, and felt beneath his fingers something else. Shiny, hard to grasp. He squatted and took
hold of the drawer, pulling it from its runners. He turned it upside down, spilling its contents all over the floor, and felt his heart jump and his breath catch in his throat. Polaroid pictures of
Judith lay scattered around him. He picked them up and looked at them in turn. In all she was naked, her body arranged in poses that made nausea suddenly rise up from his stomach. In some she was
alive, and in some she was dead. She looked terrified, hurt and vulnerable. Her living eyes and her dead eyes stared directly into his. Asking him for help. Begging him to save her. But it was too
late. Far too late for Judith now.