I Saw You (39 page)

He sat beside her on one of the old deckchairs. She poured him a glass of wine. ‘New Zealand?’ He bent his head to smell it.

‘Yes, it’s from Hawke’s Bay in the North Island. One of the best wine-growing areas. I’m amazed how much New Zealand wine you can buy here.’

‘It’s very popular. Of course, it’s easy to drink.’ This was awful. Worse than he had imagined. He wished he hadn’t come.

She put her glass on the table. ‘Michael,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘As I said on the phone, there’s something I have to tell you.’

He wanted to scrutinize her face. Relearn the topography of her features. Memorize for future reference the fine lines between her eyebrows and around her mouth. The slight slackness of skin
beneath her chin and over her collar-bone. The web of small wrinkles on the backs of her hands. He wanted to lean close and soak in the scent from her body. He picked up his glass. ‘What
about?’

There was silence. Then she said, ‘About Jimmy Fitzsimons. About how he died.’

It was hard to believe. After so many years she was sitting beside him in the evening sunshine.

‘You see . . . You see, what happened was, I couldn’t leave it like that. Justice had to be done and seen to be done. So . . .’

What was the best way to punish him? I had to make him suffer. The punishment had to fit the crime. Jimmy killed Mary. He tortured her. He humiliated her. He kept her
prisoner. Then he killed her. So that was the first imperative. I wanted him to die where Mary died. It wasn’t so difficult to get him to the cottage because he wanted me. And when we get out
of the car and even though it’s dark I can see that he is smiling. He unlocks the door to the house and he stands back for me to walk through. Such a polite gesture. Standing back to let the
lady enter. And I have help to knock him unconscious.

‘. . . I wasn’t alone. Someone helped me. The man who was Mary’s father.’

‘It’s OK,’ McLoughlin said. ‘You don’t need to . . .’

‘But I do, I do. I want you to know. I’ve thought about you a lot over the years.’

Patrick helps me with everything. He even helped me with the trial. I wanted Jimmy to get off. Because the only punishment for him was death. Prison wouldn’t have been
enough. He wouldn’t have paid for what he did. So Patrick helped me. And then he helps me again. Knocks Jimmy out and drags him into the shed where Mary died. The bloodstains are still
visible on the wall. The marks of her suffering. I chain Jimmy to the ring set into the concrete, the way he chained my daughter. Then I wait for him to regain consciousness. Patrick finds the
photographs he had taken of her. I want him to die looking at them. I want him to know that his suffering has a purpose.

‘Yes, the photographs.’ McLoughlin could see them. The images made his stomach convulse.

But he misjudges me. He thinks that I will let him go. That I am a kind, civilized person. A good person. That I just want to frighten him. But he’s got it wrong. I
strap the tape across his mouth, and around the back of his head, around and around until only his pale blue eyes are visible. And then I tell him how he is going to die. First will come severe
dehydration. Extreme thirst, dry mouth, thick saliva. He will become dizzy and faint. He will have cramps in his arms and legs as sodium and potassium concentrations in his body increase and fluids
decrease. He will want to cry but he will have no tears. His stomach will be racked with pain. He will be nauseous and he will dry-heave as his stomach and intestines dry out. His lips will crack
and his tongue will swell. His hands and feet will become cold as the remaining fluids in the circulatory system are shunted to the vital organs in an attempt to keep him alive. He will stop
urinating and suffer severe headaches as his brain shrinks. He will become anxious, then lethargic. His kidneys will cease functioning. Toxaemia will build up in his system. He will have
hallucinations and seizures as his body chemistry becomes imbalanced. Eventually he will go into a coma. His blood pressure will become almost undetectable as major arrhythmia stops his
heart.

‘I told him all this. Then I left him. Patrick hammered a piece of board across the window. The last sound he heard.’

‘Not quite. Not quite the last.’ McLoughlin stared at her. ‘Not the last at all.’

Her face was suddenly very pale. Even her lips were bloodless. ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’

He didn’t reply.

‘Michael, please, tell me what you mean.’ A tremor ran through her body. She made as if to stand, but he put out his hand and pushed her back into her seat.

‘I’m saying that I saw Fitzsimons after you left. I watched you and Patrick Holland leave. Then I broke into the shed. Fitzsimons misjudged me too. He thought I was going to save
him. But I didn’t. I did, however, save you. I cleaned your fingerprints off the tape. And I, unlike you, couldn’t bear to leave those photographs of Mary in Fitzsimons’s tomb. So
I picked them up and took them home. I’ve kept them ever since. They’re in a safe place. So you see, Margaret, you don’t need to explain anything to me. I know already what you
did.’ He took her hand. ‘I’ve thought of you every day. I’ve dreamed about you. I’ve talked to you. There’s a poem I came across recently. Its first lines are
“Stay near to me and I’ll stay near to you, As near as you are dear to me will do.” That’s how I feel about you, Margaret. I have been near to you for the last ten years. As
near to you as I am now.’ He lifted her hand and kissed it. Then he held it close to his cheek. ‘The one thing I don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is why you are here.
It’s not safe, you know. It wouldn’t take much to put you at the scene that night.’

She opened her hand against his cheek and stroked it. ‘That doesn’t worry me any longer. At the time I thought I did the right thing. All I wanted was revenge, punishment, to destroy
him as he destroyed Mary. But it didn’t stop there. I have been destroyed by it too. Every time I eat I think of how he died. Every time I drink I think of how he died. Every time I stretch
out at night to sleep I think of the cold of that concrete floor. I know what he suffered.’

She stopped. The air was perfumed with jasmine. She thought of the Latin.
Per fumare.
By means of smoke, incense, to take away the smell of the dead.

‘It was my decision to kill Jimmy Fitzsimons. Mine and mine alone. I don’t want anyone else to suffer. I had to wait until it was safe for Patrick. He’s dead now. None of this
can touch him. But can it touch you? I don’t want you to be damaged by what I did. It wasn’t your crime. It was mine.’ She slid her hand down his face, down his chest, on to his
thigh. Then she reached for the bottle of wine. She filled his glass. She filled hers. She lifted it to her mouth. She drank. He watched her throat. He wanted to kiss it. ‘I’ve made a
decision, Michael. It’s taken me a long time. I’ve been putting it off for years. Sometimes when I was feeling brave I’d think I could do it. Then the bravery would slip away and
I’d turn my back on it. But I can’t any longer. I can’t go on hiding. In Australia, here, anywhere. I want to be free of Jimmy Fitzsimons. I’m trapped by him. It’s as
if I, too, rotted away in that house near Blessington. It’s as if I, too, was stretched on the rack of his suffering.’

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He took her wrist. He could feel her pulse beating against his fingers.

‘Don’t.’ His voice came out as a whisper. ‘Please don’t.’

‘I want to ask you if you’ll come with me. I’m going to hand myself in to the police. I’m going to plead guilty to murder. I will accept the sentence of the court. I will
accept whatever form of justice is administered. And that will be that.’

‘No!’ he shouted. ‘No!’ He put his arms around her. ‘Don’t do this. Not now. You’ve no idea what prison’s like. It’ll destroy you.
It’s not some kind of a holiday camp, no matter what people say. Look, Margaret,’ he grasped her shoulders, ‘go back to Australia. No one knows you’re here. Leave tomorrow.
I’ll come with you.’ He could see it. The two of them. Sitting together in the evening. Talking about their day. He could get some kind of job. Security, maybe. Anyway, he’d have
his pension. They’d be fine. It would be a new start for both of them. They could leave all this behind. All the darkness, the sadness, the misery. ‘It’s over. It was a long time
ago.’ His voice was pleading. Begging.

‘But it isn’t over, Michael. Not for me. My life is meaningless like this.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed at him. ‘I ran away years ago when I was
pregnant with Mary. It was a mistake. I should have stayed and faced the consequences.’ She caught his face between her hands. ‘And I know what prisons are like. I worked in them for
years. And believe me when I tell you life in prison is a cake walk in comparison to my life now. I’m doing the right thing. Will you come with me?’

He couldn’t see her now. Tears smeared his sight. He tried to speak but the words caught in his throat. He wanted to hold on to the dream of their shared future. A little house in a garden
filled with lush greenery. A beach stretching towards the horizon. Gleaming white sand, sea of a blue that denied description. And warmth, not from the sun that burned above them but from their
closeness, their intimacy, their friendship. He couldn’t bear to think she would take that away.

‘Please, Michael. I need you. There’s no one else. I have no one else. Please. Do this for me.’ She put her face against his. Then she held him tightly as he sobbed.

They sat together in the garden. The light faded. They lay back in the old deckchairs. No words passed between them. He took her hand. I saw you, he thought. I saw you that
night. I have never stopped seeing you. Ever since then I have seen you every day, every night. He stared up at the stars. He listened to the sound of her breath. Soon she was asleep. Her head
lolled to one side. He took off his jacket and laid it over her. He covered her hand with his. Then he, too, slept.

Praise for Julie Parsons

Mary, Mary

An admirable, beautifully conceived work of a dark, compelling and original new voice’

Sunday Independent

‘Takes the psychological thriller to places it rarely dares to go . . . a first novel of astonishing emotional impact’

New York Times

A great thriller-writing talent’

Daily Mirror

‘Parsons is a writer to watch’

F
RANCES
F
YFIELD

The Courtship Gift

A mesmeric portrait of obsession and evil’

Sunday Telegraph

‘A skilful, high-quality suspense thriller in the Ruth Rendell mode’

The Times

‘Haunting, evocative, compelling!’

J
EFFERY
D
EAVER

Eager to Please

‘Brilliant. A star in the making’

M
INETTE
W
ALTERS

‘A clever, disturbing novel and, while comparisons with Rendell and Walters seem inevitable, Julie Parsons has her own distinctive voice’

Sunday Telegraph

‘Parsons refreshes the palate with her elegant, imaginative style’

The Times

The Guilty Heart

‘It is a remarkable book, quite outside the usual run and ambitions of crime fiction’

Independent on Sunday

The Hourglass

‘Another great accomplishment, even more deftly written . . . it has a gripping underlying menace that makes it a spell-binding read’

Irish Independent

J
ULIE
P
ARSONS
was born in New Zealand and has lived most of her adult life in Ireland. She has had a varied career –
artist’s model, typesetter, freelance journalist, radio and television producer – before returning to write fiction.

Mary, Mary,
her stunning debut novel, launched Julie onto the literary scene in 1999. She is also the author of
The Courtship Gift, Eager to Please, The Guilty Heart
and
The
Hourglass. I Saw You
is a sequel to
Mary, Mary.

Julie lives outside Dublin, by the sea, with her family.

Also by Julie Parsons

Mary, Mary

The Courtship Gift

Eager to Please

The Guilty Heart

The Hourglass

MY THANKS TO

Det. Sgt Kevin Morrisey and Det. Sgt Martin Donohue, An Garda Síochána, Garech Onorch a Brun, Paul Bowler, Rory O’Riordan,
Partners at Law
, Dr Edward Rabinowitz and Jessica Johnson for their generous help with aspects of the story.

Alison Dye for her unfailing support and first reading of the manuscript.

Joan O’Neill, Phil MacCarthy, Sheila Barrett, Renate Ahrens Kramer, Cecilia McGovern and Cathy Leonard for their helpful criticism and the tea, biscuits and sympathy.

Julie Crisp for her keen eye for a coincidence and her rigorous editorial sensibility.

And Emily Moriarty for making me laugh.

First published 2007 by Macmillan