Mary, Mary

‘Was that your father’s boat?’ McLoughlin asked. ‘In the Coal Harbour yard in Dun Laoghaire? The gaff rigged sloop, thirty foot or so, called Kitty Dhubh.’

‘I’m friends with a few of the blokes who work there. Boat fanciers like myself. They’d heard I was involved in this case. One of the older guys said he remembered you sailing with your father years ago.’

The huge white canvas sail, patched and mended, filling with wind as they rose and fell like a merry-go-round boat, racing through the harbour mouth. Her father at the tiller, his battered felt hat jammed on his head. The bowsprit rearing up above the waves, like the elegant horn of a unicorn.

‘Go on, Maggie, wave,’ he shouted, as they passed the end of the West Pier, and the fishermen standing on the granite wall raised their rods in salutation.

‘She’s an old beauty, isn’t she?’ McLoughlin said, sitting down on the wrought-iron bench in the garden.

‘Suit yourself. If you want her take her away, otherwise she’ll be going on the scrap heap like a lot of other stuff in this house.’

They had come to see her, McLoughlin and Finney, to ask her about Jimmy Fitzsimons. Had she heard of him? Had Mary ever mentioned anyone of that name? Was there anything about him that seemed familiar?

She was in the garden by herself. She looked exhausted, her eyes sunk in deep hollows, her skin the grey of a mildewed leaf. She told them she had been up all night. It was her mother. She explained. A secondary tumour growing on her spine. Vertebral metastases, it was called. Compressing the spinal cord. Severe pain radiating down the nerves. A band of pain around the thorax. Pins and needles in the legs, coldness, leading to gradual paralysis of the lower body. Catherine had been rushed to St Luke’s for radiation therapy. They wouldn’t allow her home. It didn’t look good.

‘I really just came home to change my clothes. I’m going back into the hospital soon.’

McLoughlin made her coffee, grinding the beans, hunting through the cupboards for a jug for the milk. And he talked to her, told her about questioning Fitzsimons, that he had said he knew Mary, that they had spent from the Saturday night until the Wednesday morning together. That Mary had left. That he thought she was coming home.

‘No,’ Finney said. ‘We’re definitely not. Either way, so far he’s the last person who saw her alive.’

‘And why didn’t he come forward before now? If he was perfectly innocent.’

‘Said he was scared. That we’d assume that he killed her. The usual story.’

‘So,’ McLoughlin picked up the thread, ‘tomorrow we’re going back to his house, with a search warrant. And then we’ll take him in for formal questioning. What I wanted to know was if you have any photographs of Mary’s earrings and her ring, the ones that are missing. Also any pictures of her bag, or her clothes, anything that might identify them.’

Tension in her jaw, in her shoulders, in the way she abruptly left the room. The two men sat in silence in the sunny kitchen, drinking their coffee. They could hear her opening and shutting drawers, moving around from room to room upstairs.

‘Are you not going to say anything to her?’ Finney asked. ‘About the phone calls?’

‘Evidence of what exactly? We don’t know who made them. We certainly don’t know that it was Fitzsimons. But if we need to, if we can’t crack him ourselves, then we can use the transcripts to frighten him.’

‘Has she? It doesn’t seem that way to me, Dave. And, if we’re talking about collusion, surely we’ve done a bit of it ourselves, haven’t we?’

Finney stood up. ‘I don’t understand you at all. There’s something weird going on in here.’ And he leaned over and rapped McLoughlin’s head with his knuckles.

McLoughlin poured himself another cup of coffee. He looked around the kitchen, the white-painted tongued-and-grooved walls and ceiling, the deep enamel sink, the old Aga set into the chimney breast. The black cat jumped up on his lap, staring at him, wide-eyed, kneading his trousers, purring.

He thought of the house they had left just over an hour ago. Two storeys with a slated mansard roof and dormer windows like a French country villa. Off Killiney Hill Road, a long gravel drive overgrown with rhododendrons, stone steps flanked by two carved lions and a massive front door with a heavy brass knocker in the shape of a griffin.

Mrs Fitzsimons wasn’t expecting them. She was a small thin woman, in her fifties. Her blonde hair was set stiffly, wig-like in its consistency. Her skinny fingers were covered with large rings. Green and red stones twinkled cheerfully among the diamonds. She showed them into a formal sitting room, with chintz-covered armchairs and a heavy mahogany sideboard glinting with Waterford crystal.

McLoughlin told her why they had questioned her son, that he was the last person who had seen Mary Mitchell alive. Finney told her what her son had said, that he and Mary both liked fucking. He used the word, with the emphasis that Jimmy had given it. She looked away, her pale eyes filling with tears.

She bowed her shoulders, her hands fiddling with a balled-up tissue. ‘Difficult,’ she replied, ‘always in trouble. He was expelled from school. I couldn’t understand it. He was clever. Photographic memory, but always getting into fights with the other boys.’

She shook her head, her fingers pleating the protective covers on the arms of her chair.

She stared at the swirls of colour on the carpet. She supposed, she said, that she should tell them. Jimmy was actually her eldest daughter’s child. She had had him when she was fourteen. They were living in England at the time. Manchester.

She looked up. Her gaze moved around the room, lighting for comfort on the crystal, the row of Belleek ornaments on the marble mantelpiece, the ornate brass chandelier that hung from the ceiling rose. ‘I never asked,’ she said.

A girl was leaning against their car when they left. She was fat and fair, her hair tied up in bunches behind her ears.

‘Jimmy, Jimmy,’ she began to shout, jumping up and down. ‘Jimmy showed me this. Look.’ And she began to sing the words and mime the actions, one hand held up, the other bent around her back. ‘Listen to me. I can sing.’

‘I’m a little pee-tot.

Short and stout.

Here’s my hangle and here’s my snout.’

He watched her in the rear-view mirror as they drove away, marching up and down, still shrieking the words out loud.

His father had always said, Be prepared. When you go into an interrogation, know as much as you can, not just about the facts of the case, but about the person. Know their family, their friends, their life. Everything. He had been good at interrogations, Pat McLoughlin, so they all said. Some said he was the best. He never used force, even in the days when you could get away with it. He would sit in the room, and wait. For as long as it took. He would chat. Talk about the weather, the horses, the dogs. Wait for the right moment, when he could start pushing the buttons. Wait until the desire to tell became overwhelming.

Margaret came back into the kitchen. She handed him a couple of photographs, damp patches on their shiny surface from her fingers. They were head shots of Mary, and one of her standing with her bag slung over her shoulder.

She shook her head and looked at her watch, frowning. ‘I’ve told you already. They’re all I have. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go back to the hospital.’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘this Fitzsimons guy. Funny family background. Seems he’s really his elder sister’s kid. But his grandparents brought him up thinking that he was theirs.’

He shrugged. He noticed she had changed her dress. She was wearing a long white shift. Pleated cotton, with bright red and yellow flowers embroidered around the scooped neck.

She nodded. He wanted to put his arms around her, pull her small, thin body up against his bulk, kiss her neck, nibble the soft skin that pulled away from her throat.

He thought of her again that night as he sat at home on his own. The television was on in the corner with the sound turned down. It was the annual Rose of Tralee festival from Kerry. Derek Davis was standing on stage, holding a pair of high-heeled shoes while a pretty girl, her taffeta skirts hitched up, danced a jig. McLoughlin picked up the remote control and turned up the volume. A burst of applause filled the room.

‘Isn’t she lovely? Kathleen O’Boyle from Chicago, ladies and gentlemen, and I bet Cindy and Thomas, her parents, are so proud of her.’ The camera had found them. Her father and mother were sitting close together, holding hands. Their faces were filled with love and pride. The camera zoomed into their faces, then cut back to a close-up of the girl. She was the image of her father. The same strong chin and big white American teeth. The picture changed again. Back to the mother. She was crying, the tears running unashamedly down her face. Beside her the girl’s father held out a handkerchief, then tenderly and without embarrassment, dabbed at her eyes, holding her face gently by the chin. McLoughlin poured himself another glass of wine. And as he watched, he, too, began to cry. For Margaret, for Mary, for himself.

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