Authors: Julie Parsons
The taxi slowed and stopped at a five-barred gate.
‘I might as well leave you here. It’s not much further, just around that bend in the road.’ The driver jerked his head in the direction. Jack fumbled in his pocket and pulled
out a handful of pound coins. He counted them out and dropped them into the man’s upturned palm.
‘You a friend of hers from Ireland?’ The driver twisted his thick neck around to get a better look at him.
‘Yeah, that’s right. Do you know her?’
He shrugged, then pulled out his receipt book and began to fill it in. ‘Not really, but everyone hereabouts knows who she is. She’s the official artist for the nature reserve. She
does all kinds of stuff. Calendars, cards, posters. Birds and animals, all very pretty. Not my taste though. I prefer the other kind of birds, if you know what I mean.’
God, Jack thought, bloody taxi drivers.
‘So, she lives by herself here, does she? Must be pretty lonely.’
‘By herself. You obviously don’t know her very well. She’s always got a lodger or some such staying.’ And the man sniggered, his jowls shaking. ‘She’s a bit
of a one really. But then you know what artists are like.’
Jack waited until the car had driven off before he began to walk along the lane. His feet made no sound as they scuffed through the fallen pine needles. The air smelt fresh and sharp with the
scent of resin. He suddenly felt a long, long way from home. He thought of the drive from the station. How neat and tidy all the hedgerows had been. No tattered plastic bags hanging from the
branches of the hazel and wild roses. All the signs on the road were freshly painted, perfectly legible. And there was no litter, no abandoned cars or dumped black plastic sacks oozing with someone
else’s rubbish. The villages they had passed through had village greens and he had even seen a pond with ducks, and a cricket pitch, with a quaint little wooden pavilion. It was very English,
very afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches. Very different.
Elizabeth Hill’s cottage was different too. It was built of old brick, a variety of colours, muted reds, pinks, creamy yellows, and it was half-timbered. The roof was steeply pitched, with
tall ornate chimney pots. The windows were small, the panes diamond-shaped, shining in the sunlight, and the top half of the front door was open, fastened back against the wall. He stood and looked
inside. It gave directly into what he supposed was her sitting room. It was dark, shadowy, except for the bright spotlight mounted on the ceiling, which shone down on to a drawing board, a sheet of
paper, and a woman’s fair head bent over her work. He stood outside and watched. She didn’t look up. He waited, his hand on the latch.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You’re late. I was expecting you an hour ago.’
He stood in the middle of the room and looked around him, at the murals that decorated every square inch of wall. Trees grew from the skirting boards upwards, their crowns stretched out across
the ceiling. Birds flew from branch to branch and from behind the mass of leaves small faces peeped. Children with large eyes and blonde hair, their hands outstretched. Even the floorboards were
decorated, painted with detailed strokes, dense green grass so he could almost feel the softness beneath his feet as he walked towards her.
She was seated on a high stool at the drawing board. She was wearing baggy white cotton trousers and a loose yellow shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to reveal long slender arms covered in small
freckles, and as she moved silver bracelets slipped up and down from wrist to elbow, a constant tinkling that sounded like a musical soundtrack accompanying her every gesture. Her small feet were
bare. They were also freckled and brown, with high arches and long straight toes. He remembered. He had seen those feet before. She looked like a child, this woman with her ragged fair pageboy and
her lithe compact body, but in the brightness of the spotlight he could see the cross-hatch of lines around her eyes, her mouth and across her forehead.
She offered him coffee and homemade scones with rich dark honey.
‘It’s good,’ he said, leaning back into the cushions of the low sofa.
‘It’s local,’ she replied. ‘My neighbours on the next farm keep bees.’
There was silence as he munched. He licked his fingers then said, ‘You’ve lived here how long?’
‘I left Dublin fourteen years or so ago. I was lucky. I got this job very quickly. I like it here. It’s almost my home.’
‘Almost?’
‘Almost. As much a home as anywhere can be, apart from the place of one’s birth.’
‘So you think that, do you? That it’s not possible to replace one home with another?’
‘It’s the emigrant’s dilemma, isn’t it? The yearning for something that’s changing all the time. Never being able to be happy with what you have.’
‘So do you go back to Dublin often?’
‘Don’t be so disingenuous, Mr Donnelly. You must know that I don’t. You probably also know that when I went back for Judith’s funeral, it was my first time since I
left.’
‘So you didn’t return when she got into trouble? When she went to prison.’
‘You know that. You know that I didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of it at first. Judith didn’t choose to tell me. And my husband doesn’t keep me up to date on
the goings-on with my children. Not since all that nastiness, all those years ago. He’s never forgiven me, I’m afraid, for the way I betrayed him. Having an affair was bad enough, but
having an affair with a woman was completely beyond the pale.’
‘Hold on a minute.’ He sat up straight and looked at her. ‘Having an affair with who?’
She laughed out loud at the look of surprise on his face.
‘You’re shocked,’ she said. ‘You who’s seen everything. Did no one tell you? I’d have thought they’d all be dying to reveal the true extent of my
disgrace.’
And then it was his turn to laugh when he thought about it. How everyone had just said a relationship with a family friend, and he and the others had all made the automatic assumption.
‘You see, I’m not only an adulteress, but I’m a lesbian too. Doubly shocking. And my husband had to bear the knowledge that he had been cuckolded by a woman, and, worse still,
by someone he knew and liked. Sweet Jenny Bradley. She was married. She and her husband were neighbours of ours. We ran away together. We both left our families, our men and our children. But she
went back. She couldn’t bear it. She realized she loved them all more than she loved me. But that wasn’t the way it was as far as I was concerned. And Mark never, ever forgave me for
the disgrace, the public humiliation. That was why our custody battle was so bitter and protracted. That was why I did what I know was a shameful thing and took the children and brought them
here.’
‘A shameful thing? Was it? It was, I would think, a rather foolish thing. You must have known that the British police would find them and take them back.’
She nodded. ‘I suppose I did. I don’t quite remember what I thought or knew then. But I did know after that dreadful day when they were, how shall I put it, “removed from my
custody”, that I had to let go of them. That there was no future in this. And in spite of everything I knew that Mark was a good father. A better father than I was a mother. He truly loved
them. And their home was with him. So I made a decision that I would stay away from them. I knew that if I tried to have access it would be bounded by conditions, rules, regulations and I
couldn’t bear all that shit. So I rationalized it, I decided that when they were older they could choose. To see me or not to see me.’
‘But weren’t you worried that your husband’s opinion of you, his view of what happened, his influence would prevail? Surely he would make sure that they wouldn’t want
you?’
‘That was a risk I was prepared to take. But I know him. I know him very well. I’d known him since I was a small girl. We were part of the same world. Both from Church of Ireland
families. We lived in the same part of Dublin. Our families were friends. We were practically like brother and sister. I should never have married him. I knew from the word go it was a mistake. And
I also know this.’ She stood up and took a cigarette from a carved wooden box on the mantelpiece. She lit it, then sat down once again on her high stool, the light shining on her face.
‘I know he would never, ever do something like that to Judith. You’re so wrong about him.’
‘So who would? Tell me that, because we have plenty of evidence, you know.’ And he told her then, about the studio, the blood, the tools, the photographs, and watched the colour
drain from her face. She stood up and went to the tall cupboard in the corner. She opened it and took out a bottle and two small glasses. She poured. She drank. He hesitated.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s good stuff.’
He sipped warily. It was apple-based, he could smell it in the spirit. She poured herself another glass. He shook his head.
‘It’s local too,’ she said. ‘Another neighbour who grows apples for cider makes it. You could call it own-brand Calvados. It’s very good for emergencies.’
She turned away, her head bowed. The room was quiet. Somewhere outside he heard the revving of a tractor’s engine. Full throttle then dying down to a low rumble. He waited. He looked
around him again. There was a desk against the far wall. A computer squatted on it. Ugly and plastic. Unlike anything else in the rest of the room. Above it were a number of photographs, framed. He
stood up, glass in hand and walked over to look at them. He recognized them. Judith and Stephen as children. The same pictures that were on the wall in her studio in the house in Rathmines. And
other pictures too. A woman with dark hair in a thick fringe. She looked familiar. He looked down at the desk. There was a pile of pages in a plastic-covered folder. And beside it a small print, a
painting that he recognized immediately.
‘This Caravaggio here. It seems to be a bit of an obsession with all of you. This is the third time I’ve come across it since Judith died.’
She lifted her head and wiped her hand across her eyes.
‘It’s grotesque isn’t it? I should get rid of it. I used to admire the way it was painted. That strange mixture of explicit realism with a kind of heightened dreamlike quality.
But it’s the kind of picture you can only enjoy if violence has never touched you. But now, to me, it’s pornographic. It glorifies and glories in the act of murder. It celebrates
it.’ She walked over to the desk. She pointed to the folder. ‘Judith’s essay. She sent it to me to read. I was impressed. It’s an excellent piece of work. But I can’t
look at that painting any longer. It makes me feel sick.’ She picked up the print and tore it into pieces, flinging them into the grate of the fire. She poured herself another measure and
drank half of it in one go. She stood beside him, looking at the photographs. ‘That’s her,’ she said, touching the face of the young, dark woman. ‘That’s my Jenny. She
was so beautiful then.’
‘And now?’
She smiled. ‘Now she’s a middle-aged woman with a good haircut and a bad figure. I saw her when I was over. She came to the funeral. She barely acknowledged me. And afterwards, after
the service, she had invited everyone back to her house. But it was very obvious that “everyone” didn’t include me.’
Of course, now he could place her. The neighbour whose birthday it had been that weekend when Judith was killed. The neighbour to whom Judith had given the flowers.
‘Is there anything else you want to know, Mr Donnelly? If not, I’m afraid I’m behind with my work.’ She switched on the computer and pulled an upright chair to the
desk.
‘I’m surprised,’ he said, picking up his briefcase and pointing at the screen. ‘I thought you were a pencil-and-paper kind of person.’
‘Needs must,’ she replied, her right hand fiddling with the mouse. ‘I use it all the time now. The graphics package is quick and simple. And in spite of myself I have become a
fan of the Internet. I can read the Irish papers every day and keep up with what’s happening at home. So, Mr Donnelly, I’ll be watching what you do, have no fear.’
She walked with him as far as the gate and waited until the taxi came. He thought of the way she had looked when he arrived that morning, almost like a child in her simple clothes and bare feet.
Now she looked like an old woman. Her skin was grey and sagging. Her eyes dull. Her movements slow and awkward.
‘Please remember what I have said to you about Mark.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m asking you to take it seriously. I do not believe that he killed Judith. Please do
not carry on with this line of investigation. Nothing good will come of it. He has suffered enough through the years. Please don’t add to his suffering.’
He was exhausted by the time he got to the airport. He just wanted to get back to Dublin, find himself a quiet corner in a quiet pub, and get stuck into a couple of pints. But
the plane was delayed. First of all for half an hour and then for a further forty minutes. He sat at the bar and nursed a drink. All around him he could hear Irish voices. Comforting, familiar
sounds. You’re a dreadful wimp, he said to himself. A day away from home and you’re a mess. No sense of adventure at all. And then he heard his name being called. He turned around and
recognized the small blonde woman behind him.
She had been in London for two days for a conference on fostering, she said. It was very dull, no fun at all.
‘Here,’ he patted the stool beside him, ‘take a pew. What’re you drinking?’
They had met a number of times before, he thought. Always with Andy Bowen. In fact he seemed to remember that once he had thought there might be something happening between them. But Andy had
said no and laughed at the thought. Not Alison, he had said. She’s far too bloody upright and principled to have anything to do with a married man. And added, sourly, ‘More’s the
pity.’
He waited for the inevitable questions about the murder, about the arrest, about the investigation. But they didn’t come. Instead she talked about her garden.
‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’ve been away for three days and all I can think about is the greenfly on the roses and whether or not the loganberries will have
ripened enough to eat. And I planted a couple of silver birches last week, and I hope the next-door neighbour’s kid will have watered them for me like I paid him to do.’ She laughed,
her round face dimpling. ‘Since I moved into this house in Sandymount last year I’ve become a complete gardening bore. I’m like someone who’s just had a baby. I’ve
only one topic of conversation.’