Authors: Julie Parsons
‘But how did she react when her mother went missing, and all that stuff in the papers and on TV, all the rehashing of the case? And then the suggestion that something bad might have
happened to her. Didn’t that upset her?’
Mrs Williams sighed deeply. ‘She didn’t say much about it. We hoped that it was a false alarm, nothing really serious. So I suppose we tried to play it down. Not deny it, of course,
but just stress that no one was sure what was going on. She had been a bit quiet recently, but she goes through these silent phases anyway, from time to time, every now and then. She kind of
withdraws. Spends a lot of time here in her room, listening to music, drawing, reading. We’ve got used to leaving her be. She comes out of it eventually, when she’s ready.’
‘And did she mention recently that she had met anyone new, that anyone had made any approaches to her?’
But of course she hadn’t. She wasn’t one who would tell everything. She would want to have her secrets. Still he thought he might as well show Mrs Williams the photograph of Dan
Beckett. Just for the record. Just so he could say he’d done it. He watched her face as she gazed at the picture. She took her time, studying it slowly, then she shook her head.
‘He looks familiar for some reason. But it strikes me that he’s far too old to have been friends with Amy. No, I’ve never seen him. Never seen him at all.’
He asked her if she minded leaving him alone, here, just for a few minutes. She shrugged and said she supposed not, running her hand protectively over the flowered duvet and plumping up the
pillows before she left. He sat back and looked around him. There was a cosy nest-like quality about the room, he thought. The small single bed looked inviting, and he had a sudden desire to lie
down, although he could imagine how his legs would hang out over the end. ‘Whose been sleeping in my bed,’ he chanted quietly out loud. And smiled. This was a room a kid could be happy
in, he decided, and then remembered Judith Hill’s room and how it had looked that day when had gone to see her father for the first time. Cold, clean, empty. Nothing to say for itself. Not
giving away a single clue or an ounce of information. And now all its secrets were buried in the family plot in Deans Grange cemetery. The one grave, the headstone with the two names on it. He had
been surprised by that, but Elizabeth and Stephen had decided between them. Whatever else, Judith and Mark were still father and daughter, still the same flesh and blood.
How much did that matter, flesh and blood, the biological link, he wondered as he said goodbye to Pat Williams.
‘You will let us know as soon as you hear anything, won’t you? You will do everything you can to find her for us, please?’
She followed him out on to the footpath. Her hands fluttered like falling leaves. She couldn’t keep them still. He wanted to take them and fold them together, wrap her arms around her
body, keep her safe. Instead he just nodded and said that of course he would. He’d phone them later. They weren’t to worry. He was sure that Amy would be home soon.
His phone rang just as he was bumping across the railway line at Merrion Gates. It was Sweeney’s number on the display. His heart sank. It could be nothing but bad news.
‘There’s someone trying to get hold of you, Jack. She’s insisting. She needs to see you. Here, you know the address.’
Again that dreadful smell of rotting flesh. It hit him as soon as he walked into the hall of the tall redbrick house in Rathmines. The front door had been on the latch, and when he pushed it
gently, it swung open. He stood and looked around him. He remembered the sight of Mark Hill’s body hanging from its noose. He called out.
‘Mrs Hill, Elizabeth, are you there?’
There was no reply. He took a couple of steps forward and peered into the sitting room on the right. It was empty but in here the smell was even stronger. And then he heard voices coming from
the dining room behind. He called out again, and this time she answered.
He opened the door and walked in. And gagged, vomit in his mouth. He pulled out his handkerchief and spat into it, unable to speak. He looked around him. There was blood everywhere and pieces of
flesh. Shapes that were both recognizable and unknown. Elizabeth Hill was standing at the door that opened out into the garden. A tall heavy man was standing beside her.
‘You remember George Bradley, don’t you?’ she said.
Jack nodded and looked around him. He tried to find words to ask, to question, but there was nothing there.
‘Stephen did it.’ Elizabeth spoke in a low monotone. ‘This is all his handiwork.’
Flies buzzed over the remains.
‘For some reason,’ she said, ‘he was trying to copy the picture.’
She pointed to the large print of Judith and Holofernes that had been pinned to the wall. Now it hung sagging, torn at the edges. Jack bent down, covering his nose to look more closely at the
animal heads which were everywhere. Chickens, birds, the remains of a sheep, something that looked like a cat, even, he was disgusted to see, a couple of rats’ heads. He felt his gorge rise
again and backed away.
‘Here.’ Elizabeth stepped aside. ‘You’d better go out and get some fresh air.’
She explained what had happened over a cup of tea in the Bradleys’ bright clean kitchen. She had been coming to see Stephen anyway, she said. But when she arrived they told her that he was
no longer staying with them, that he had decided to go home. They were worried about him. They had tried phoning, they had knocked on the front door a number of times, but there was no
response.
‘Of course, we knew he was in there,’ George Bradley said, ‘from our mews, which is where I have my office. You remember, I’m sure, Mr Donnelly. You visited me there
after Judith died. And of course we can see clearly into the house from the windows. And I could see lights on, so I knew he was in there all right.’
Jack remembered. The bright modern office space. The converted garage. George Bradley had some kind of software company. Very high-tech. Although he had thought at the time that he didn’t
look the type. He looked more like a teacher in a posh school, with his grey hair and half-glasses, baggy cord trousers and sleeveless sweater.
‘Anyway, to cut a long a story short, we finally decided to go in and look for him. Jenny has a key, you know. She’d been reluctant to intrude. But anyway, there he was, in the
dining room, covered in blood, with all those dreadful things around him. He was completely incoherent.’
Elizabeth had begun to cry, quietly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just so terrible.’
‘Where is he now?’ Jack looked at George Bradley.
‘We got the doctor. He’s taken him into hospital. They’ve sedated him, and they’re going to do a full assessment.’ Bradley stood up and opened a cupboard. He
brought out a bottle of brandy. ‘Here, Elizabeth, have a drop of this. It goes surprisingly well with tea.’
Jack looked around him. The kitchen was filled with sunshine. A tabby cat lay sleeping in a basket on the countertop. It snuffled and snored gently, its whiskers twitching. Above it was a
pegboard covered with notices, letters, photographs, cards all pinned haphazardly together. He needed something like that, he thought, for when the girls came to stay. He could never keep track of
their swimming lessons, their ballet lessons, their term times, days off, holidays.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked, finishing his tea and refusing another cup.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but thanks for coming anyway. I wanted you to know about this. Oh, don’t get me wrong.’ She reached out and touched his hand.
‘I’m not blaming you. Stephen’s mental condition doesn’t, I think, only have to do with what’s happened over the last couple of months. I bear a lot of responsibility
for it too, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t you agree, George?’
George Bradley looked at her and for a moment his stare was hard and unforgiving. Then he smiled, a mechanical grimace.
‘Not at all, dear. That was a long time ago. Water under the bridge and all that.’
He thought about forgiveness as he drove home. He had forgiven Joan her sins, he supposed. He hadn’t enjoyed being deceived, being lied to, being made a fool of. But then he didn’t
really love her, so he wasn’t hurt in that way. He thought about George Bradley and Mark Hill. One had forgiven, the other had not. One was alive, the other was dead. One had a family that
was still intact. Children who were growing up with futures to anticipate. He thought about the terrible scene in that room. The stench, the sight of the sticky dried blood all over the floor, the
fly-blown animal remains. What must have been going through that poor kid’s mind? How had he got to the stage where he could do all that?
The rain had lifted by the time he got home. He parked the car and walked back towards the harbour. He sat down on a granite bollard. The slipway was crammed with people and boats. It was a
happy, colourful scene. It would have been like this the day that Rachel went out with Beckett, he thought. They had taken statements from a number of people who had seen them. How did she look? he
had asked. They all said the same thing. How does anyone look who’s about to go off sailing on a nice afternoon? She looked normal, that was what they said. He went through the checklist of
where they had searched for her. The ports, the airports, the train and bus stations. They’d found nothing. They’d put her photo and description out on the TV news. It had been
plastered all over the newspapers. No one had seen a thing. She had got into the boat with Beckett and as far as they could tell she hadn’t come back. And something had happened out there.
Something that wasn’t good. He rehearsed the evidence so far. Blood that matched Rachel’s all over the cabin. The knife with her blood and Beckett’s fingerprints. Blood too all
over his sailing gear. And then there was the evidence they had collected at his house. Hairs and fibres taken from the bed, the sofa. Her bag on the bonfire. The clothes picked up by the fishermen
from the Irish sea. The evidence of at least one violent encounter between the two of them. The statements from the other tenants and from Clare Bowen. She had bruises, all over, Clare had told
him. She was frightened. So why did she go out in the boat with him? What hold did he have over her?
Did they have enough to charge him? Jack would have thought so. Beckett had the three essentials. Means, motive and opportunity. But the DPP hadn’t made a decision. So they’d watch
him. Drive him crazy. And sooner or later something would give. Jack was sure of it.
Poor Rachel Beckett, he thought. Andy Bowen was probably right about her. She should never have had to serve that sentence. He felt suddenly guilty. But what was it to him? He was barely
involved. He was the new kid on the case. Older, wiser heads had made the decision to go for the murder conviction. Had refused to countenance a plea of manslaughter. Had insisted that she should
pay the price for her crime. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone. He needed Alison now. A bit of comfort would go a long way on a night like tonight.
I
T HAD BEEN
easier than Daniel had thought to move the girl from the apartment just off the North Quays out to the house in Killiney. He had to hand it
to her. She was pretty cool when it came to pressure. She knew how to look after herself. Not bad for a kid barely eighteen. Still, he supposed she hadn’t licked it up off the street. Her
mother had the same kind of calm. He remembered her that day out in the boat. The blood dripping down her wrist, the way she had reached out for him, asked him to pick up the knife. Scattered all
those bits and pieces of evidence all around the boat, and his house and car. Left her markings to be sniffed out.
He could have left Amy longer in the apartment in town. It was safe enough in some ways. He’d been able to drop in and see her a couple of times a day. Leaving the van in one of the
underground car parks where his company had the security contract, then slipping out through the crowds and taking a circuitous route through the city to the service entrance of the apartment
block. She had seemed fine to him. They had talked. He had cooked meals for her. Spaghetti Bolognese, his speciality, and garlic bread. Brought her bottles of wine. Chianti in raffia bottles. She
had questioned him about what had happened then, all those years ago. She wanted to know everything, everything he could tell her about his relationship with Rachel.
‘Why didn’t she tell me herself?’ she kept on asking him. ‘Why did she go on telling me lies?’
He couldn’t answer her.
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘she didn’t want to make things seem any worse than they already were. She didn’t want to drag you into the shame of it all. I suppose she was
trying to protect you.’
‘Protect me,’ the girl had scoffed. ‘It wasn’t that. She was just a coward. She couldn’t face me with the truth. But . . .’ She leaned across the table and
took his hand. Her cheeks were pink. The wine, he thought. ‘But wasn’t it very cruel of her to deprive you of me? After all, you had no one of your own. No one of your own flesh and
blood, I mean. You would have wanted me, wouldn’t you? You would have wanted us to be together, isn’t that so?’
He supposed he could have left her in the apartment in town, but he could see that she was getting restless. She didn’t like being locked in on her own. He kept on telling her that it
wouldn’t be for much longer, but after three days had passed she was beginning to get anxious. And he was worried. The apartment was registered in Ursula’s name. But he wasn’t
sure how long it would be before some clever little prick of a detective would do a search of the Land Registry and find it. So it would be better to bring her out to the house in Killiney.
They’d already been over it with a fine-tooth comb and found nothing. And they wouldn’t get another search warrant without further evidence. And it would be so much easier to have Amy
close at hand.
So he’d worked it all out. And he’d waited. He knew the surveillance routine. They didn’t hang around all night. Once they thought he was safe in bed, they disappeared.
Watching the overtime claims, he was sure. So he waited and listened, then when all was quiet he slipped out of the house, down the cliff path, along the beach to the car park by the DART station,
and found the van he’d arranged to have parked there. The one that belonged to the business, but without any logo to identify it. He drove into town. She was lying fast asleep on the sofa,
turned on her side, with her arms wrapped around a cushion. A blanket was slung over her legs, and when he touched her on the shoulder, whispering her name, she shot up out of her sleep grabbing
hold of it and pulling it up to her face, frightened for a moment. Confusion, surprise all over her small pale face, then quickly realization as she pushed aside the blanket, her legs bare
underneath it, and stood and pulled on her jeans, shoving her feet into her runners, quickly bending down to tie the laces. Then picking up her leather backpack, running a hand through her short
hair, following him out into the cold. Didn’t ask him anything, just stood shivering, her lips trembling as he opened up the back of the van and gestured for her to get in. Showed her the
sleeping bag rolled up on the mattress in the back, waited until she had pulled it up and over her body. Locked her in. Then unlocked the door when they had arrived back at the car park by the DART
station. Told her to follow, then took her hand to pull her quickly through the soft sand, down on to the shore, showed her the way across the rocks, heard her breath coming in short gasps as she
struggled to keep up with him. They scrambled up the path, through the pine trees and into the house, just as a faint streak of pale grey appeared along the horizon.