Authors: Julie Parsons
Jack looked at him and raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? Kind of a crazy thing to do, I would have thought. To put a convicted murderer in a position of trust
with your own wife. Kind of mixing the professional with the personal, isn’t it? Not strictly according to the rule book, I would have thought.’
Andy’s face reddened. He sat up straight.
‘And do you, any of you, always operate strictly according to the rule book? Come on, who are you kidding?’
‘That’s as may be, Andy, but I’ve never involved my family in anything I’ve done. That’s different. That’s dangerous.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Jack, get off your high horse. Rachel Beckett isn’t violent or dangerous. You know that. What happened with her was a one-off. There was never any
suggestion that she would reoffend. Not really. She shouldn’t have served that sentence, you know that as well as I do. In fact, if the truth be told, a conviction of manslaughter would have
been more appropriate. She was extremely unlucky. These days she might not even have gone to prison. And if she had she’d probably have been out in a couple of years. Anyway,’ he took a
long swallow from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, ‘anyway, it’s worked out really well with Clare. They like each other. Rachel is very good to her. And
it’s made things so much easier for me.’
Easier for you to go out and get plastered all the time, Jack thought. And immediately felt sorry for him. He sighed. ‘OK, well, whatever.’ He pointed his finger in Andy’s
direction. ‘I still think it’s dodgy. And I don’t think your superiors are going to be too impressed.’ Andy made as if to interrupt.
Jack held up his hands, palms out. ‘Yeah, yeah, I get the picture. You want me to make a few discreet enquiries, see if she’s just taken off on a bit of a notion or something, fallen
in love or whatever, discovered God, gone on a retreat. Don’t worry, I’ll do it. And I’ll keep my mouth shut. For the time being.’
But there was more that Andy wanted him to know. What his wife had told him. ‘She said to me, when Rachel didn’t show up for the second time, that she was really worried about her.
She said that Rachel had told her something, made her promise that she wouldn’t tell me. But now she wasn’t so sure. Apparently Daniel Beckett had found out that Rachel had left prison.
He’d tracked her down, found out where she was staying. And he’d been to see her. Clare says that Rachel was in a bad state afterwards. She was terrified. She said that he had raped
her. She had bruises all over. Bad ones.’
‘Why didn’t she tell you about it?’
‘Clare said she was terrified that this would upset her temporary release. That she would be sent back to prison. She said that she had told Dan that when she was more able to manage on
her own she would move away. That she didn’t want to cause him any problems. But according to what Clare said, she was badly frightened.’
‘And do you believe her? What kind of mental state is Clare in these days?’
‘Ah, come on, Jack, she’s ill, very ill, but she’s not that bad. She’s not hallucinating or imagining things. Look, why don’t you come and talk to her yourself?
Make up your own mind. I just think it’s odd, that’s all. But I don’t want to do anything about it officially until I’m sure what’s going on. I feel I owe it to her to
give her a bit of a chance.’
To say nothing of your own chance, Jack thought as he finished his drink. ‘OK, I’ll go and have a look around her flat. Talk to the neighbours. See what the story is.’
He remembered the way her room had looked that day he had come to ask her about Judith. Everything so neat and tidy and clean. The huge sash window was pushed right up, so a strong easterly
breeze blew in off the sea, lifting the curtains and making the paper lampshade whirl around on its central flex. She had told him she liked it like that, even though it was cold.
There’s no wind in prison, she had said. There’s nothing like that inside. Even outside in the yard, you’re still inside.
Today it was just the same, neat and tidy, everything in its place. Except the window was tightly closed. The room smelled stuffy, airless. He stood in the middle of the floor and looked around
him. There was a bunch of flowers, wilted, in a glass vase in the middle of the small kitchen table, and a smell of decay that came from the cupboard beneath the sink. He pulled it open and lifted
out a plastic rubbish bag. Tea leaves and vegetable peelings that had all gone mouldy. He poked gingerly around. Scraps of bread, some apple cores. Nothing much. He opened the fridge. There was a
small carton of milk, sour, solid, and a couple of cartons of natural yoghurt and some cheese. He dumped them all in the plastic bag and opened each of the small cupboards. A pile of plates and
bowls, a couple of mugs. And in the drawer next to the sink some cheap cutlery. He walked across the room and opened the wardrobe. Not much here either. A couple of dresses and skirts, two pairs of
trousers and a suede jacket, which looked new and expensive, all hanging from wire hangers. On the row of shelves there were piles of underwear, T-shirts, some blouses and sweaters, all folded
neatly. Nothing looked new, apart from the jacket and a pair of sandals, still in their cardboard box, in the bottom of the cupboard. He reached up to the shelf at the top. His fingers felt
something hard. He pulled it out. It was a small brown leather suitcase. The remains of a tattered label were glued to its scratched lid. He sat down on the bed and opened it. Inside was a pile of
old photographs. He flicked through them. A small child, an older couple. He recognized them all. Daughter and parents. There were a number of official-looking letters all on Department of Justice
headed notepaper. And beneath them lay a large brown envelope. He lifted it up. It was heavy. He turned it upside down and tipped the contents out beside him. It was money. Wads and wads of notes,
in different denominations, fastened together with thick elastic bands. He did a quick count. There must be a few thousand here. Five thousand at least. And crumpled in the bottom of the envelope a
note, in faded handwriting:
From your mother. She wanted you to have this. Something to help you get back on your feet.
He stood up then and stripped the bed, pulling away the mattress. There was nothing to find. He lifted the rug from the floor, sliding it away, but again nothing but dust. He opened the door to
the small bathroom. It smelt of damp. He tugged at the mirrored front of the cupboard above the sink. Inside was a packet of Anadin, a new tube of toothpaste, a couple of bars of soap. Some jars of
face cleanser and moisturizer. A toothbrush lay on the sink, and a face cloth was folded over the edge of the bath. That was all. In the corner next to the bath was a wicker basket. He lifted the
lid. A towel, a sheet, a pair of jeans, a pair of trousers made from something like linen, a blouse, a bra and a couple of pairs of pants lay crumpled in a heap. He pulled them out and threw them
on the floor, and saw immediately, on the sheet, a smear of something that looked like dried blood. He picked it up and walked back into the bedroom, into the light. There was blood, that was sure,
and something else. An opaque stain, sticking in a small ridge to the material. He stood by the window and looked around him. What of value had she brought to this room? What of value was still
here? He looked down at the photographs, scattered now on the floor. The child with the straight brown hair looked back at him. He sat down on the bed again and noticed the large map on the wall.
It was a map of the city, different areas outlined in different colours. He remembered he had commented on it that day.
It’s my memory map, she had said. I needed it when I was in prison, when I began to forget what was outside. I’m keeping it for old times’ sake.
He piled the money into a heap and began to count. Carefully, taking his time. All together there was six thousand, seven hundred and fifty-five pounds there. A lot of money for someone like
Rachel Beckett.
He thought about the conversation that he had had that morning with the woman called Sheila Lynch. Someone else who Clare Bowen had told her husband about.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Lynch said to him, ‘I know Rachel and I’m worried about her. I can’t understand where she could have got to. I drop in on her from time to time. But the
last time I called to the shopping centre to see her, they told me they didn’t know where she was. I’ve bought her a few things, you know, given her a few presents. She has nothing, the
poor girl. Absolutely nothing. And it’s so difficult for her. She’s not like the rest of those people who go to prison, you know. She comes from a good family. She was well brought up.
It was so hard for her, for all those years. And now she’s trying to make it right again, and she was so upset that her daughter wouldn’t see her. I counselled patience. I told her how
volatile teenagers can be. But I am worried. I can’t imagine where she’s got to.’
‘What do you reckon?’ he asked Alison that night as they lay together in her bed. ‘You’ve met her. What do you think of her?’
‘She’s extremely vulnerable. You should have seen her that day she came to meet Amy. She was so nervous she could barely stand. And afterwards, after Amy blew her out, I actually
felt like going after her, to see if she was all right. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we’d had to fish her out of the river, she looked so shattered.’
‘So do you think this disappearance could be suicide?’
Alison shook her head. She turned and kissed him on the shoulder, resting her lips against his skin for a moment. ‘No, not really. Rachel must by now be what we call a hope addict. Hope
has sustained her through her years in prison. Hope is all she has left.’
‘Is that hope or fantasy?’
‘Does it make any difference at this stage? I doubt it,’ she replied, and lay back on the pillow, curling her body around his. He turned towards her. She looked very pretty, her eyes
closed, her hair falling forward over her face. He kissed her gently on the forehead and pulled her closer. He reached out and switched off the lamp. He closed his eyes. He slept.
I
T WAS A
trap. Daniel Beckett could see that clearly now. She had set it, baited it, sat back and waited. And he had sprung it. Without even knowing
what he was doing. Without a struggle, an ounce of resistance. He had accepted all the lures and temptations. And now he was paying for it. Hand over fist.
The police had been very polite when they had come to the door early that morning. He had heard the bell ringing somewhere far off, deep in the dream that was carrying him towards wakefulness.
But he didn’t want to open his eyes. There was something wrong. He knew it. There had been something wrong for the last couple of weeks. Ever since the Sunday that he had taken Rachel out on
his boat, when Ursula and the kids had gone to the States for a couple of weeks to see her family, and he had stayed behind in the house by himself. Well, not quite by himself, because Rachel had
been there with him.
They had been very polite when they saw him standing on the doorstep, clutching his dressing gown, his feet bare, his eyes filled with sleep, his mouth dry and arid. The politeness had lasted
while they drove him up the hill to Killiney village, then down the winding road to the town below. It even lasted until they had put him first of all into a cell, then, after half an hour or so,
brought him into what they called an interview room. Then the politeness had ended.
He had met them all before, the men who came and went throughout the day, asking him the same questions over and over again. The inspector, Jack Donnelly, was the one who was in charge. It was
he who had turned up at the house and had spoken to Ursula the day after she came back, when she was still jet-lagged. Half asleep. Shown her Rachel’s photograph. Asked her if she knew her.
When she had last seen her. Then come back again, sometime later, when it all began to get much more complicated and difficult, and said casually, ‘It must have been hard for you when you
realized who she was and what her relationship had been with your husband.’ Feigned innocence of the consequences of his question.
It was Donnelly too who had come to see him in the office that first time. Led him gently along. Allowed him to say that, yes, of course he remembered her. And, no, of course he hadn’t
seen her for years.
‘Oh,’ Donnelly had said, ‘that’s strange because your wife has told us that this woman, who she recognized from a photograph although she said she knew her by a different
name, was at your house. At a party for your wedding anniversary, in fact. And that you definitely met her that night. Isn’t that so?’
So he had to agree, said that it was an awkward situation. Of course he had been surprised to see her, shocked if the truth be told. And he had asked her to leave, thrown her out in fact.
‘And your wife really didn’t know who she was? Who she really was?’
‘Well.’ He had paused and thought how best to answer this. ‘To be honest, no, she didn’t. Rachel had given her some story about how her husband had dumped her for a
younger woman. The kind of thing that drives women mad, you know?’ He had tried to laugh. ‘And Ursula had felt sorry for her, and befriended her. There’s no reason to upset her,
surely, is there? You say that Rachel hasn’t been seen for a few days. She’s missed work. She didn’t show up for her meeting with her probation officer. Well, I don’t know
much about these things, but it seems to me that that’s a violation of the terms of her probation. I can’t see that it has anything to do with me.’
But somehow he could see that this was a problem that wasn’t going to go away that easily. He watched Donnelly and the man with him, a sergeant he supposed, called Sweeney, settle
themselves down on the leather sofa in his office, the one Ursula had convinced him to buy. They looked comfortable there, he thought. Too bloody comfortable. They didn’t look as if they were
in a hurry to leave. And Donnelly even had the nerve to ask him if he would hold all his calls for a while. Just until they’d finished with their business.