Red Ribbons (9 page)

He smiles again.

‘You look tired.’

I don’t answer him.

‘Ellie, I have been going over some of the background history here in the file.’ He makes a hand gesture towards the closed case notes.

My blank stare does not unsettle him.

‘You were committed to St Michael’s in 1995.’

He coughs.

‘At that point you had been married to Joe for, what, almost ten years?’

‘Sounds right.’

‘How would you describe your relationship? After all, ten years is a long time.’

‘I’m here longer. That time has flown.’

He ignores my sarcasm. ‘It says here that it was Joe who signed the committal papers.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘And how did that make you feel?’

‘I felt nothing, he did the right thing.’

‘No anger towards him, disappointment even?’

‘No, all the anger and disappointment was for him alone. I understood that.’

‘Ellie, if I am being completely honest with you, my main concern here is that you have made very little real progress since you arrived here. Do you feel we might have let you down?’

‘Perhaps I don’t want to make progress.’

He leans back in the chair like he did the day before. It is one of those reclining types. My chair does not recline, it suits me fine and reflects how I feel, rigid.

‘Why not?’

‘Because.’

‘Because what?’

‘Because I don’t, didn’t—’

‘Didn’t?’

‘Don’t.’

‘I want you to be truthful.’

‘What is the truth, Dr Ebbs? Sometimes we think we know the truth, but we don’t. One man’s truth is another man’s lie. I’m sure you’ve heard that one before.’

‘Well, yes, the truth is subjective but, for now, what I want to know is your truth.’

‘Ah, my truth, now that is a little bit tricky.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Because, Doctor, I haven’t worked that particular part out yet.’

‘Well, let me ask you something else then.’ He can tell I’m irritated. He’s playing his cards carefully. ‘How have you found your time here at St Michael’s?’

In truth, his question isn’t any different from any other question I have been asked in the past. So I’m surprised at my outburst.

‘Well, let me see. Initially, when I wanted to kill myself, I found it most annoying, awkward even. Later it became quite acceptable, more suited to my needs. And now? Well, now I am used to it and it’s just fine. ’

I knew my big mouth would get me into trouble.

‘And why does it suit you just fine?’

‘Fine, like truth, is subjective, Dr Ebbs. One man’s fine is another man’s hell.’

‘Indeed.’ He thinks long and hard on this, as if he respects what I have to say.

‘You went missing for some time before the fire?’

The fire again. I close my eyes, more out of frustration than anything else. He picks up on this immediately.

‘Is your distress because of the fire or because we are talking about it?’

‘The fire means nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

This surprises him. I wait. I have already said too much. He leans forward again.

‘Do you know, Ellie, there is a saying I learned a long time ago, it has always stuck with me.’

I hold my stare. This gives him encouragement, it seems.

‘It says the mad are more sane than you think, and the sane are more mad than you know.’

‘Do you think I’m mad?’

‘Do you?’

I don’t answer. He raises his eyebrow, but it does not deter him.

‘I suppose it tells us, Ellie, that people are not always what they seem.’

‘People are seldom what they seem.’

‘Indeed, you’re right. People are seldom what they seem.’

He pauses again.

‘Would it be fair to say, Ellie, that your marriage was an unhappy one?’

‘Not always.’ I am surprised at my honesty.

‘You and Joe, you came from very different backgrounds?’

‘He was a good man, but I wasn’t good for him.’

‘The circumstances before you came here to St Michael’s, they must have been difficult for you both.’ He says this more as a confirmation than a question. ‘It is a hard thing losing a child, a hard thing for anyone.’

‘Yes.’ The fact that I have answered surprises me. I feel uncomfortable, out of my depth.

‘Ellie.’

‘Yes.’

‘I want to help you.’ His words are said softly, but with directness. It feels unnerving. I don’t answer, I don’t want to.

‘I would like you to try something for me. Would you be willing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I would like you to try and go back to the point that you, Ellie, see as the beginning. Maybe write down a few short lines about it.’

‘Now?’

He senses the panic in my voice.

‘No, no, over the next few days is fine. You don’t have to do it, of course. But think about it, and depending on how you feel, if and when you do write things down, you might wish to share your thoughts with me. Either way, I would like you to at least consider doing the exercise. If afterwards you prefer to keep your thoughts to yourself, that would be fine.’

‘I don’t have to show or tell you anything?’

‘Nothing, if that is what you want.’

‘Okay, I’ll think about it.’

‘Good. That pleases me, Ellie.’ He smiles.

I say nothing, but I sense I am only buying time.

‘So maybe we could meet again in a few days, just to give you time to think about what we have discussed?’ He smiles again, the type of smile that doctors use to put you at your ease.

‘All right.’

Just like yesterday, he stands up and gestures me with arm movements to the door and I, like a well-trained dog, stand up and move forward, doing exactly what is expected of me.

O’CONNOR WASN’T LOOKING FORWARD TO HIS VISIT to Morrison. Tallaght Hospital may have been a very different building from the old city morgue at Marino, but the slick lines of modern design and shiny floors were purely cosmetic when it came to the stench of death. He passed the visiting smokers and patients in their dressing gowns congregated outside; he was dying for a cigarette, but had no intention of lighting up with them. Once through the revolving doors, he entered the main hospital, busy with visitors, patients and hospital staff, all criss-crossing each other within their business of recovery, and the reality that for some of them anyway the fight might soon be over.

He had been just a rookie guard when he’d attended his first postmortem, but some things have a habit of never leaving you. He had expected similar smells to a hospital – clinical, sterile. What he hadn’t expected was the smell of decomposition, and that unforgettable feeling of everything being slowed down. The male victim had been in his late teens and had been discovered in an alleyway down from a popular nightclub. Laid out on the steel slab mortuary table, he’d been photographed fully clothed, the images taken at various angles. As the pieces of his clothing had been removed, the delayering process, the clothes, and any of the items found in them, were photographed in turn, forming separate links in the chain. The naked body was then photographed, again at varying angles, paying particular attention to
any markings, some of which had occurred prior to his killing, but every single mark was photographed and referenced.

During the process, O’Connor had been surprised by the simplest of things: how the small metal rulers used for measuring and illustrating the size of body parts, wounds and abrasions had been the same type as the one he had used at school. Each of the metal rulers was disposed of at the end of the autopsy, a new one for every corpse. The chrome scales used to weigh the individual organs looked similar to those he remembered from old-style butchers, and the plastic buckets to hold organs were not unlike the kind you would find in any hardware store. All of this activity happened within a bubble of time slowed down, everyone speaking in the same calm monotone, sometimes reduced to a whisper, as if the guy on the slab might somehow hear and answer back.

O’Connor had learned something that day. He had learned that when it came to autopsies, you needed to think, and not let your feelings get in the way. You had to take in the angle of the knife, the potential size of the weapon, the penetration of entry wounds to the torso, and anything else that might help solve the crime. Nobody was a spectator at an autopsy, everyone had a purpose, and he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of him doing his job, no matter how difficult it might be.

Even before O’Connor entered the mortuary section of the hospital, he had imagined Caroline’s grey statuette form lying waste on the steel trolley, the squeak of metal wheels against the shiny, spotless floors, Morrison carrying out his task with the precision of a master, everyone suited up in their surgical gowns. The girl’s body held answers, and he hoped the state pathologist would find them. If the autopsy was still in progress, experience told O’Connor that he needed to prepare for what he was about to see.

As he walked through the corridors, he took in all the sounds around him: the shuffle of slippered feet, machines bleeping, steel
metal bins being flipped open, lift doors opening and closing shut. O’Connor only looked far enough ahead to follow the signs, despite it being a well-worn path. The farther he walked, the more the human traffic around him reduced, till the only person he could see was the uniformed guard stationed outside the double doors. O’Connor engaged the young guard in conversation and introduced himself, then asked the young man his name and where he was based. They talked for no more than a minute, but it was enough to cement the feeling that they were in this together.

When he saw Morrison walking towards him, he knew the autopsy was over. O’Connor was relieved that the last memory he would have of the girl would be the one from the grave, and not on a stainless steel slab.

‘Good evening, O’Connor.’ Morrison had already changed out of his autopsy garb.

‘So what do you have?’

Morrison eyed him the way you might an impatient schoolboy, assessing whether or not he was worthy of being given a speedy response. Morrison chose to be accommodating.

‘Well, Detective Inspector, what we have is an adolescent female, probably less than a year into pubertal period. There is very little fat tissue on the body, practically skeletal in certain areas, could be part of accelerated growth or an aggressive diet regime.’

‘Meaning?’ O’Connor looked up from writing in his notebook.

‘Meaning exactly what I just said.’

‘Fine. Go on. Sorry.’

‘The plaiting of the hair happened after the blows to the head, heavy matting within the hair follicles, broken in parts to achieve the tying of the plaits, along with cotton fibre interspersed, perhaps a cloth used to clear away some of the blood, of which there would have been plenty. No fresh blood on the outer layers. I believe some time had passed from the blows being given to the hair being plaited.’

O’Connor continued to write in his notebook. He knew he would get a full report from Morrison in time, but at such an early stage in the investigation everything moved fast, and it was good to have certain things close at hand.

‘Also, Detective, there were bite marks inside the victim’s mouth. Judging by the size of the teeth marks, most likely belonged to the victim herself. The blows to the head came from behind, a narrow steel implement; the first blow did the most damage, after that it was just repeated force.’

‘But the blows didn’t kill her?’

‘No, asphyxiation is still the most likely cause.’

‘And how the body was placed?’

‘That’s the interesting part. As you know, a body will automatically curl into the foetal position, but we are dealing with something very different here. When the girl’s body was placed underground, rigor mortis was in the latter stages, so a considerable number of hours had passed since her death.’

‘How many?’

‘Well, Detective, I normally avoid giving in-depth science lessons, but when the victim’s body was exhumed, a relaxed body state had already occurred. Therefore, in my opinion, the girl was killed shortly after she went missing.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Rigor sets in within a couple of hours after death – you say the girl went missing around 4 p.m. on Wednesday? If the girl was killed a couple of hours later, rigor mortis could have begun to take hold by 8 p.m. The entire contracting process is completed within eight to twelve hours. So, using ten hours as an acceptable mid-ground, that means that the entire rigor would have been completed ten hours after death, or around 6 a.m. Thursday morning. The body then remains fixed for another eighteen hours in a state known as the rigid stage, which would bring us up to around midnight, and that’s important.’

‘Why exactly?’

‘After that point, the reversal of rigor occurs, but at some juncture after rigor began, the rigor was forced.’

‘Forced?’

‘He broke her bones, Inspector, at the knee joints, elbow joints, fingers … do I need to go on?’

‘No, I get your drift.’

‘Which is why the positioning is important. As I said, the way the body lay could be construed as a fairly natural position for a corpse, but this time nature had a helping hand.’

‘So what happens after the rigor reverses?’

‘To fully relax takes a further twelve hours. The body was exhumed around midday on the Friday, and at that point the body was practically in a fully relaxed state. Mind you, rigor can be variable based on conditions, but considering the girl went missing at 4 p.m. on Wednesday and the relaxed body state had already occurred when she was found, she had to have been killed within a few hours of going missing.’

‘Is that the end of the science lesson?’

‘Not quite. Do you want to hear this or not?’

‘I’m all ears. I’d never dream of rushing you.’

‘Correct answer, Inspector – any more room in that notebook of yours?’

‘Plenty.’

‘The tissue decomposition is important too. It wasn’t advanced. Therefore it was delayed in some way.’

‘How?’

‘Any number of reasons or conditions, but I’m talking about the time before burial.’