Authors: Julie Parsons
T
OM
S
WEENEY WOULD
do the interrogation. Tom Sweeney was good at it. Jack would sit in the corner and watch. Make notes, monitor
what was being said, intervene if he thought that Tom had let anything slip by. Except that Tom never did.
‘OK, before we start let’s summarize what we have.’ It was six in the morning. They were going to pick up Dr Hill in half an hour. They would hold him for six hours, then they
would renew the order. Twelve hours to get a confession. An admission of guilt.
‘Crucial question number one. When did Judith Hill die?’
Today was the 23rd June. It was a week since her body had been found. Johnny Harris reckoned she’d been dead for about six days. So she was killed, they thought, somewhere around the 10th
of the month.
‘How was she killed?’
That was easy. They knew she had been strangled. Again Harris considered, from the damage that had been done to her neck, the kind of force that had been used, that her killer was most likely to
be a man. And a large one at that.
‘What other injuries did she have?’
Laceration of the vagina and anus. Severe bruising on the thighs and external genitalia. Also heavy bruising on the ribs and stomach, which had caused rupture of the uterus. Bleeding from the
vagina. Bruising to eyes, cheekbones and nose. Probable cause: blows to the face and head before death. Bleeding from the nose and mouth.
‘What physical evidence do we have?’
Bloodstains found in the upstairs room. Bloodstains on the lino-cutting tools. Dr Hill’s fingerprints everywhere. Photographs of Judith taken both before and after death. Evidence that the
rope used to strangle her had come from the house. The doctor’s tie that had been threaded through her fingers. Hairs from Judith’s body found in the doctor’s car. The linen sheet
in which she had been wrapped was identical in every way to other sheets found in the house. And Dr Hill himself had identified the rubber groundsheet as one that he had bought many years ago.
‘What do you reckon, Jack? What’s your considered assessment?’ Sweeney’s grin was getting bigger and bigger.
‘I’d say it’s a hole in one, most definitely. A birdie, an eagle, a fucking albatross, or whatever you call it. And I’d say we should get going.’
He sat in the corner and listened. Sweeney was taking Dr Hill through that weekend, the last weekend that he had seen Judith.
She had come to stay on the Monday before. It was the housekeeper’s annual holiday. He needed someone to cook for him, clean up after him, generally take care of him.
‘Judith always did it, you know, before she got into trouble. From when she was quite young, ten perhaps, twelve, before she was a teenager. She was very good around the house. A very good
girl. She always wanted to please me, make me happy. She used to come home from school and before she’d even started on her homework she’d have prepared the vegetables for
dinner.’
‘So you must have enjoyed spending time with her, it must have seemed like old times.’
‘Well, you know the way it is. I was in and out. I have surgery here twice a day. And then I do house calls as well. And I’d be visiting patients in hospital, keeping an eye on their
progress. But we ate together every evening.’
‘So explain to us, Dr Hill, if you would be so kind, explain to us how it was that you say you didn’t realize that she had gone missing. I don’t quite understand
that.’
‘Well, you see, I went away, that weekend. For the Saturday night. I was invited by friends who live in Wicklow, Laragh to be precise. They invited me for dinner and, because of the
ridiculous laws about consumption of alcohol and driving, they suggested I stay the night. And when I got back home on Sunday, there was no sign of her. But everything was left perfectly clean and
tidy, and there was even a stew in the oven, waiting to be heated up.’
‘No note, no message, no nothing?’
‘No, there wasn’t, but that didn’t surprise me. She had done what I asked of her. The housekeeper was due back on the Monday, so I just assumed that she had left, gone back to
college, whatever. You know, I gave up trying to keep track of her movements a long time ago.’
They had checked, of course, with the friends in Wicklow. They corroborated his story, up to a point. They had asked him to come for pre-dinner drinks around seven o’clock. He hadn’t
arrived until eight-thirty. He hadn’t given any explanation for his lateness. They had thought his manner strange, distracted. He hadn’t spoken much. He had in fact behaved quite
rudely. He had got very drunk that night. Not like him, they said, he was usually a temperate man. And then in his drunkenness he had talked a lot about Judith. How disappointed he was by her. He
could never forgive the shame she had brought on the family. How after all this time she reminded him too much of his wife. And the shame that she had brought on them too. And they said he had
left, quite abruptly, sometime after midnight. They had remonstrated with him, warned him of the dangers of drinking and driving. But he had just got up and gone. Just like that.
Sweeney was going through his polite phase. Jack watched him. He could hear the contempt in Dr Hill’s voice. Sweeney was patient, persistent, thorough in his questioning. Dr Hill could
barely bring himself to respond.
‘So where did you stay that night? Your friends tell us that you most definitely didn’t stay with them.’
‘No, they’re right, I didn’t. I stopped the car at Kilmacanogue and I slept there until dawn. Then I went home.’
‘Home to kill your daughter, was that it?’
Dr Hill didn’t reply. He looked into the middle distance and sighed.
‘Your friends, your old friends, they were very concerned about you that night. They said your behaviour was uncharacteristic, unusual. They were quite shocked by you. Can you explain what
was on your mind?’
‘Explain to you? Why should I? What business is it of yours whether I’m drunk, sober, polite, rude. Whatever I am?’
Jack listened to Sweeney explaining why it was in his own interest to be more forthcoming. There was silence. Sweeney sighed. He put his hand in his pocket. He pulled out a large yellow
envelope. He held it upside down. The photographs dropped on to the table. Sweeney fanned them out. Jack waited for the response. But there was none. Dr Hill looked away.
‘What do you expect me to say?’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do? Cry, beat my breast, is that it? Well, I won’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘She disgusted me when she was alive. She disgusts me now she’s dead. I didn’t take those photographs. I don’t know who did. But I’m not surprised by them. Not that
long ago Judith did that sort of thing to pay for her drug habit. She was used to it. I asked her once how she could bear it. She just shrugged her shoulders and said, ‘Needs must.’ Can
you credit it? I saw her, you know. I went looking for her one night. I drove into town. I drove around Fitzwilliam Square, then down by the canal. There was a row of women, all waiting. I drove
slowly so I could see her. She didn’t realize it was me. She turned around and she pulled open her blouse. I saw her breasts. My own daughter. I remembered how I used to bathe her when she
was small, after her mother went. It was a nightly ritual. The two, my beloved son and daughter, in the bath together. They had such perfect beautiful little bodies. And afterwards I would dress
them in their pyjamas and put them to bed and read to them until they fell asleep. Then I would sit and watch them in case they might have bad dreams, nightmares, and they might want me. And this
was the payment I got for all that love and devotion. My own daughter waving her tits at me on a cold, wet, bloody awful night.’ He stopped and buried his head in his hands, then he looked
up. ‘You asked me why I behaved so uncharacteristically, as you so delicately put it, that night. Well, my daughter had just told me that she was pregnant. She asked me to help her get rid of
the baby. She asked me in my capacity as a doctor. Not as a father. And that, my friends, is the last thing that I will say to you. I will now exercise my right to silence.’
They kept him there until the last possible moment. And then they let him go. The statement went out to the media. A man had been arrested and questioned for the murder of Judith Hill. He had
been released. A file was being prepared and would be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. And in the meantime, Jack thought, they would watch him and they would wait.
Rachel heard the announcement on the nine o’clock news that night. She was sitting beside Clare Bowen’s bed. The light was turned off in the small room. A strong
smell of new-mown grass drifted in on a gentle breeze. She got up and made as if to shut the open door. Clare put out her hand and plucked at her sleeve.
‘Leave it. I like it like that.’
Rachel liked it too. The grass on the lawn at the back of the house had been ankle-deep when she arrived in the early evening. It was strewn with daisies and buttercups, and crowned with the
waving heads of plantains. She had dragged the lawnmower from the shed and tugged hard at the cord until, with a couple of splutters and groans and a gush of grey smoke, it had burst into a raucous
screech. She had raked the clippings into soft piles, then taken off her shoes and walked barefoot up and down, feeling her toes sink into the soft springiness of the grass. Then she had lain down
on it for half an hour and dozed until Clare had called her in.
Now they watched the television pictures. An old photograph of Judith, taken, Rachel was sure, when she was sixteen or so. Shots of the outside of the house and the place where her body had been
found. The Garda team at work. An interview with Jack Donnelly about progress so far, and then the shot of a man being bundled from the station into a waiting car. A coat was held over his head,
but Rachel recognized him immediately. A big man. A strong man. Judith had dreaded his visits.
‘Why does he come?’ she had said. ‘He hates it here. He hates me. We have nothing to say to each other.’
‘And was it always like that?’ Rachel had pulled her head on to her shoulder to comfort her.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she had replied. ‘Maybe when I was small we got on OK. I was always so good. I was polite and thoughtful. I always put him first, but then as I got
older. I don’t know. It was different.’
‘You knew her, didn’t you?’ Clare tried to lift her head from the pillow, but the effort was too much for her.
Rachel nodded.
‘What was she like?’
‘She was lovely. She was clever. She was very funny. A great mimic.’
‘And that man there. Do you know him?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘No, but I know who he is. He’s her father.’
There was silence then. Rachel got up and went into the kitchen. She opened the cupboard and took out the container of pills. Antibiotics and painkillers. Opiates, DF 118s and sleeping pills.
Halcyon was the name printed on the label. Rachel smiled at the notion. Andrew Bowen had counted them out and left them.
‘Give them to her with some juice,’ he said. ‘There’s orange and passion fruit in a carton in the fridge. It’s her favourite.’
Rachel put ice cubes in a tall glass and filled it to the top. She sat down beside the bed again and lifted Clare’s head.
‘Here,’ she said, ‘it’s time for your pills.’
‘Not the sleeping pills, not yet. I want to stay awake for a bit longer.’ She opened her mouth for the others and swallowed them down with a gulp from the glass. Juice ran down her
chin and on to her nightdress. Rachel bent and wiped it away.
‘You’re kind.’ Clare’s voice was barely audible. ‘Very kind.’ She lay back on the pillow. ‘He’s paying you, I hope, for this?’
Rachel nodded.
‘He needs his time by himself. He has a woman he goes to. I know all about it. It’s not love. It’s never love with Andrew.’
Rachel lifted the sheet away from Clare’s body, then smoothed it down, tucking her in firmly all around.
‘It wasn’t love with me either. In the beginning maybe, but not for long.’
‘And you, what was it for you?’ Rachel fluffed up the quilt and tidied the books into a neat pile beside the bed.
‘It was love for me. No one could understand what I saw in him. He was gawky and clumsy. But he was clever, so bright and funny. I laughed all the time when I was with him.’
‘Here.’ Rachel held out the sleeping pills. ‘You should take them now. It’s late. You need your rest.’
The woman in the bed smiled. ‘It’s not sleep I need. It’s something a bit more permanent. We’ve talked about it, a lot. In the beginning we talked about when would be the
best time. And then I got better and for a while I thought it had all been a mistake, a misdiagnosis. And then the symptoms came back and this time there was no mistaking them.’
Rachel watched her eyes flick uncontrollably from side to side.
‘And so we’ve decided. It’ll be sooner rather than later. The problem is how to do it. These pills, these things I have to take, you can’t overdose on them. They’re
benzodiazepines, unfortunately, not barbiturates. They bring forgetfulness, a respite, but it’s only temporary.’
‘Shh.’ Rachel knelt down beside her again.
‘The thing is, I’m worried about what it’ll be like for him. Afterwards. How will he feel? I want this, I don’t want to go on like this, but I don’t want him to
suffer. I’m scared he’ll feel guilty. That’s why I wanted to ask you.’ She paused, her breathing laboured.
‘You wanted to ask me what?’ Rachel looked down into her face.
‘Oh, nothing, it’s nothing.’
‘No, go on, tell me.’
Clare closed her eyes, then opened them looking directly in Rachel’s.
‘I want to know how you felt, after you killed your husband. Did you feel any guilt? What was it like for you all those years in prison? Could you bring yourself to remember him, the way
it had been before?’
Rachel stood up and moved away.
‘I didn’t kill him,’ she said. Her voice was measured, controlled. ‘How many time do I have to say it. I did not kill my husband. Yes, I admit I shot him, but I
didn’t kill him. It was an accident. It was my brother-in-law who did it. No one would believe me. In some ways I don’t blame them. I should have told the truth right from the start.
But I didn’t. I lied. And my lies were found out.’