Eager to Please (29 page)

So he’d watch her and he’d wait. And in the meantime he’d go on visiting the café by the harbour where the girl worked. He was getting on well with her. She liked him.
She’d told him her name.

‘Amy Williams,’ she said, with a shrug and a grimace of distaste.

‘Amy, that’s a nice name.’ He leant back in his chair and looked up at her.

‘Yeah, too nice, too sweet, too pretty.’ She lifted up his cup and saucer to wipe away the crumbs from his pastry.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s subtle and different. It’s like you.’ And watched the flush on her cheek, and the smile that followed it. Now he could see her mother in
her. In the way she looked down as she spoke, her gaze flicking back to his for an instant, then away again.

Patience, that’s what was needed, a bit of biding his time. Martin had been good at that. He could do no better than follow his little brother’s example. Martin had told him often
enough: ‘Don’t rush into situations, don’t make snap decisions, bide your time. It’ll be worth it in the end. It always is.’

Martin was right about most things, he thought. Except for that last time. But now he’d do what he counselled. He’d wait. He’d bide his time. He’d stick it out.

T
HE PHONE CALL
woke Jack out of a deep dreamless sleep. The best sleep he’d had in months, if not years. What was it that the kids in school used
to say? Two kinds of deep sleep. The sleep of the just, and the sleep of the just after. This was definitely the latter. He rolled over, moving Alison’s head from his shoulder, and felt for
his phone, hearing the warbling ringing tone.
Eine Kleine Nacht Musik
played at double time. It was Ruth who did it. She was always fiddling around with it, changing the settings. Like most
ten-year-old kids she knew more about mobile phones than anyone else in the universe.

He was sure he had thought to leave it somewhere findable. Unlike the rest of his belongings, which were scattered inelegantly across the bedroom floor. His fourth night in a row at
Alison’s. The weekend spent juggling kids and fatherly duties, but still managing to find himself winding up in Alison’s squeaky brass bed.

His fingers closed on its plastic case. He looked at the LED display. It was five past nine. It was Sweeney’s number. Shit, he thought, I’m bloody late. And then he thought, no,
it’s not that. I’m taking today off, my first free day in weeks. So what is this? It must be trouble.

The body was still hanging where it had been found, dangling from the banisters, down into the hall, twisting gently in a slow and stately pirouette as the rope around its neck wound and
unwound. The housekeeper had discovered it. She had let herself in as usual, just after eight-thirty. She had been looking down at the rug in the hall, thinking, she said, that it was getting very
threadbare around the edges. That really she should speak to Dr Hill about it. It would be dangerous soon, easy to trip on, and really that wouldn’t do with so many people traipsing in and
out of the house every day. So she didn’t notice it immediately. It was only when she was right underneath that she saw him. That she saw his feet hanging just above her head. His poor feet,
she kept on saying. She’d never seen his feet bare before. He was always so meticulous about everything, always kept himself really well. He has beautiful hands she said, real healer’s
hands. But his feet, what a mess. The toenails need cutting, calluses all over his heels, and a corn on his middle toe. Jack met Sweeney’s eyes above her head. He winked and instantly felt
dreadful. Sweeney was trying not to laugh.

‘So, love, what else did you see?’

‘Nothing else,’ she said. ‘I got such a fright I just stood there looking up at the poor man and then I phoned for an ambulance, and when I told them what he had done they said
they’d send the guards. Straightaway.’

The doctor had hanged himself from the banisters on the first floor. Jack looked at the rope. It was clothes line. Faded, orange, exactly like the rope used to strangle his daughter. He had left
a note. It was stuck in the pocket of his shirt. A single page, torn from what looked like a prescription pad. His name, address, phone number and surgery times printed on the top. And underneath,
in small, barely legible handwriting, the date and the message.

It was not signed. Jack watched as Johnny Harris supervised the removal of the body from its suspended position. He leaned against the panelled wall of the hall. In spite of
everything, he was feeling wonderful. He could barely keep the grin off his face. He looked at his watch. It was ten-thirty. Alison was doing home visits all day. He had said he would phone her.
They might be able to meet for lunch. But anyway she was coming to his flat for dinner and the rest. He closed his eyes. He could still feel her breasts pressing against his chest, her legs wrapped
around his hips. Still smell her skin and taste her mouth.

‘Hey, boss, wake up.’ Sweeney prodded him in the ribs. ‘There’s someone at the door who wants to see “whoever’s in charge”. I suppose that would have to
be you, wouldn’t it?’

This time he recognized her immediately. The middle-aged woman with the good haircut and the bad figure. She was waiting outside on the front path.

‘I was wondering what’s happened. What all this is for.’ She gestured to the ambulance and the three Garda cars parked underneath the plane trees. ‘Is there something
wrong? I’m not just being nosy. Mark Hill is a very good friend.’

He thought she was going to faint when he told her. Her face flushed, then the colour faded from it. She staggered and he put out his arm to support her.

‘Here, I’ll take you home.’

Jennifer Bradley, that was her name. He remembered the house. Next door up on the left. And the flowers that Judith had given her for her birthday.

‘Shall I come in with you, will you be all right?’

She nodded, struggling to control her voice. ‘Thank you, but my husband’s here. He’ll be as shocked as I am by all this. We’ve known the Hills for years and years. We
both moved into these houses at the same time.’

‘You were friendly with Elizabeth Hill, weren’t you?’ He tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible.

She looked at him and smiled coldly. ‘I was. I’m sure you know all the details.’

He nodded. ‘Not all,’ he said. ‘Just the important ones. I’m just curious, if you don’t mind. You and your husband worked it all out. You stayed with him. And you
and Dr Hill were also on good terms, is that right?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was even colder. ‘I made a mistake. I realized that. I allowed a certain,’ she paused, ‘a certain emotion to take over my life. But I could see
that it had no future. My future was here with my family.’

‘But Elizabeth didn’t feel like that?’

‘Elizabeth Hill was always a rebel. That was one of the things that made her very attractive. But I wasn’t. And Mark knew the difference between us. And he didn’t hold it
against me. I tried to help him with the children as much as I could. Judith and Stephen were always in and out of my house. They used to come to me and my husband when Mark was busy. And Judith
used to babysit for my younger children. She was almost like their older sister. We all loved her very much. We are all so diminished by her loss. And now this. It’s so unfair.’ She
began to cry, her face crumpling. She took out her keys and opened the front door.

‘I’m sorry.’ Jack held out his hand to her. ‘I didn’t mean to add to your pain, but sometimes these questions have to be asked.’

Someone would have to tell Elizabeth. He supposed it would have to be him. His sense of well-being vanished. Better get it over with. He walked slowly back towards the Hills’ house. He
would do it out here in the street where it was quiet. He took out his phone and his notebook. He found her number. He began to punch it in. And then he felt a blow on his back, followed by another
and another. He turned around. Stephen Hill was behind him, an expression of fury on his small white face.

‘You bastard, you fucking bastard. Look what you’ve done to my family. You’ve destroyed it. You’ve destroyed my father.’ He began to flail at him again, his fists
jabbing into his stomach, his solar plexus, his lower abdomen. Nervous laughter burst out of Jack’s mouth as he put up his own fists to defend himself. And felt excruciating pain as Stephen
lifted one foot and kicked him hard and accurately in the testicles. He bent double, gasping for breath, agony flooding though his body, vomit rushing up into his mouth. He heard rather than saw
Sweeney dragging Stephen Hill off him, hustling him back into the house, as he slumped against the railings waiting for the pain to subside.

It was much later when he finally got around to making the phone call. He waited until Johnny Harris had been in touch. He confirmed that Dr Hill’s death was suicide.

‘I’m surprised,’ he said, ‘about one thing. Hill had access to all kinds of drugs. Just a quick look at his surgery and I could see he had plenty of morphine there.
Enough to die painlessly. Yet he chose to die by strangulation. And there’s no doubt about it, it hurts. But then that’s the pattern. Women take pills, men choose a more active,
aggressive form of death.’

‘I know why you’re ringing.’ Elizabeth’s voice sounded subdued, distant. ‘Stephen has already phoned me. He’s distraught. I’m coming over this evening.
I’ll take care of the funeral. He told me how he went for you. He’s sorry now. He knows it wasn’t your fault.’

But was it? He sat on the balcony with Alison beside him, watching the sky darken over the harbour. There were boats tied up along the harbour wall, visitors from England, Germany, France. They
could see their lamps and navigation lights glowing, and hear their chatter and music from their radios. Alison took his hand and kissed it.

‘It isn’t your fault, Jack,’ she said. ‘All you’ve done is your job. Who knows why he killed himself. A lot of suicides are not spontaneous. A lot of them have been
planned in some way, conscious or unconscious, for years. He hadn’t done his grieving for his daughter particularly well, had he?’

‘How could he, if he had killed her? How could he have grieved for her at all?’

‘But that’s the dilemma, isn’t it?’ She poured more wine into both their glasses. ‘Just imagine the combination of grief and guilt that man was carrying. I saw it
in Rachel Beckett yesterday when she came to meet Amy. You can see the toll it’s taken on her. It hurts looking at her. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

But he couldn’t stop thinking about it. And that night, as he lay with Alison’s head on his chest, every time he closed his eyes he saw Mark Hill’s face. His tongue protruding
from his mouth, his purple swollen cheeks and his bare feet, white and soft, traces of talcum powder still clinging between his toes.

Grief and guilt. He felt them both himself. And there was no way of leaving either of them behind. Not now. Not ever.

R
ACHEL HAD BEEN
watching the next-door neighbour’s cat all afternoon. Her attention had been attracted first by the sudden darts of movement
across the paved terrace, towards the little oval pool, then the rush and leap up into the solitary old apple tree, which even now at the height of summer was still without all its leaves.

She had watched the way the cat’s black tail thrashed from side to side as it crouched by the rockery, something small and dark between its front paws. She had noticed the way it pulled
back just for a moment, as if its attention had been distracted, and then as the small dark something tried to move away, it moved too, once again alert, aware, its shiny black ears pricked
upright.

She had opened her window as high as it would go and leaned out as far as possible, trying to see what it was that was keeping the cat so amused. She could hear, above the noise of the traffic,
the yowls and low cries that came from its mouth as it circled its prey. And then when she could bear the suspense no longer she had gone down the three flights of stairs to the door which led out
into the yard, crammed with piles of wood and discarded broken pieces of furniture. Junk that her landlord had abandoned, but which provided a useful ladder so she could pull herself up on to the
top of the wall and look down into the ordered beauty of her neighbour’s small garden. The square of concrete paving, the pool with its water lilies and fish, the patch of lawn surrounded on
three sides by a narrow bed crammed with summer flowers and vegetables. And on its own, the apple tree, its trunk splitting into a fork, like two fingers held upright. Where the cat now sat,
opening and closing its yellow eyes against the brightness of the sunshine. While at the foot of the tree, spreadeagled on the close-cropped grass, lay a frog.

She watched it. It appeared as if it were dead. She pulled herself on to the top of the wall, then dropped the few feet on to the ground. The cat turned its face towards her and crouched down
into the black ruff of fur around its thick neck. She looked towards the house, but there was no sign of activity behind its gleaming windows. She moved quietly across the grass to the foot of the
apple tree. She crouched down and examined the frog. It was about four inches long. Its legs, mottled with green and brown markings, were splayed out behind. They looked almost human, she thought.
Elegant. The princeling wearing the cross-gartered stockings. She picked up a piece of twig and gently touched its back. It made no move. She pushed at it, but its body did not seem to register the
pressure. Above her head she heard a rustle and the sound of claws on bark as the cat began to slither down the trunk towards her. She put one hand in the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a
bundle of paper tissues. Carefully she picked up the frog, holding it gingerly, and half ran to the pond. As she bent down over the water suddenly the frog squirmed and pulled away, leaping out,
its legs already making swimming movements as it disappeared with a small, musical splash. Down, down, beneath the lily pads, into the darkness. She looked up at the cat, who had followed behind.
He stared fixedly into the murk, then crouched again on his haunches, his tail thrashing from side to side, and a sound of disappointment coming from his throat.