‘Farming books.’
We dropped those off as well.
Tom Fred took them over to Chilly. ‘Are these the books?’
‘Yes.’
‘Each has several pages folded. They were like that when you found them?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do they describe?’
‘How mares and bulls have been known to cause fatal accidents and—’
Boring details establishing how big Ed and Amy came by the info first-hand.
‘What else do they describe?’
‘How to eradicate strangles.’
Boring details establishing Conor got eradicated the same way.
‘What was found beside these books?’
‘Lucille’s birth certificate and a laptop.’
We dropped those off as well.
‘What was recorded on the laptop?’
‘Emails to Picasso.’
Boring details proving Corn was blackmailed into killing the Donavans.
‘In Edna, Amy and Conor Donavan’s case, was he instructed to use the same methods described in the farming books?’
‘Yes.’
Stacks more stuff followed. Tom Fred should put me on his Christmas-card list. I’d given him enough evidence to choke Jaws. Any more and he’d’ve never got it in the fucking door.
Brady had a go.
‘Detective Sergeant Winters, did Lucille explain how she came to be so easily found unconscious in her holiday home?’
‘She has no knowledge of how she got there.’
We didn’t tell her we’d be dropping her off unconscious.
‘When she regained consciousness, what was her first concern?’
‘She kept asking, “Is my mother all right? Please tell me my mother is all right.”’ (Her mother’s fine, as far as I know. Mind you, I haven’t seen her in twenty years. That reminds me, I told her I’d get back to her. Hope she’s not still sitting in Whites’ farmhouse waiting on my call.) ‘When I told her that Anne Donavan had been murdered, she became even more hysterical. She was covered in bite marks. When I asked what had happened “Picasso’s rats” was all that I could get out of her. Questioning had to wait until she’d been taken to the station and a doctor brought in.’
‘Were you troubled at any time that the amount of evidence against Lucille was found so conveniently?’
‘Really, Your Honour, perhaps Mr Brady would like to ask the accused if she too was troubled that the amount of evidence against her was found so conveniently?’
‘Yes, I was troubled.’
‘Why?’
‘Because every question I put to Lucille had been answered “I don’t know”. A girl who’d pull a stroke like this would have all kinds of get-outs. But she hadn’t one. A clever criminal on the one hand, a fool on the other. No poison had been used, no guns, no sticks or bats, no running people over, no pushing in front of trains or from high windows, no kickings, no drug overdoses. Three of the Donavans had been killed in ways I had never come across. There was a mind at work here. Yet how did that mind allow itself to get caught so easily?’
I think Chill had a soft spot for Lucille. A touch of compassion there in the way he said that. Maybe fathers who’ve had their daughters kidnapped and who find themselves charging them for murder twenty years later feel sorry for them automatically even though they don’t know they’re their daughters. That’s just my theory. I doubt anyone’s done a study. Maybe they tried but couldn’t find any long-lost kidnapped daughters to question.
Next up came the shrinks, to explain how Lucille appeared to be unaware of the crimes she’d committed. One acting for her barrister, the other for the state. One for, one against.
The former said she had no memory of them because, in his view, she hadn’t committed them. The latter said he reckoned she had a split personality. She had a good side – it came through when she was with people who’d been kind to her – and a bad – evil and cunning, which came through when she was with people who’d maltreated her.
Tom Fred brought in witnesses from the orphanage. They’d been seated outside and didn’t know what the shrinks had said. A Sister Angeline said she was very fond of Lucille, that she was kind and compassionate. But when they called a Sister Dominic, and she said Lucille was anything but, everyone in the courtroom knew that she had maltreated her.
Here’s what a reporter covering the trial wrote. (I got all this from the media by the way – I could hardly turn up in court and have Chilly thinking, ‘Here, that’s Red Dock. Wonder what he’s doing here.’) ‘Sister Dominic wasn’t aware as to why the hushed courtroom was looking at her accusingly. But the point had been substantiated. Lucille had an evil and cunning side.’
Lucille’s turn.
‘Lucille, while you were deceiving your mother, what were your feelings towards her?’
Brady piped in at the ‘deceiving’. No good. Overruled. Shut the fuck up, Brady. You’re holding up the proceedings here.
‘She seemed very nice. I wanted to get to know her better.’
‘You did not blame her for having placed you in the care of Sister Dominic?’
Oh, I meant to say, when Corn sent his collection to art galleries, they printed them in their catalogues – notoriety gets the punters in I suppose – and Tom Fred had copies. He held up a few.
‘These portraits, Picasso’s subject matter: nuns in Christian Brother cassocks, replete with belts and crucifixes, portraying androgynously – yet predominantly through the female sex – the evil of which both sexes are capable, is said – as we have heard from an eminent criminal psychologist – to illustrate the background of the artist, his experiences as a child. In particular this one – the Medusa painting. It depicts a nun with two faces, one beautiful, the other – on the back of her head reflected in a mirror – of Medusa. A small boy cowers for protection behind a statue of Christ, which the Medusa face has turned to stone. If such a boy, having suffered maltreatment to the point of insanity, grew to express these experiences by preying on the female sex, does it not follow that others who had undergone such maltreatment might also be capable of such depraved acts?’
Nah, you’re way off the mark
