‘Did you ever cower behind a statue of Christ, Lucille?’
‘Oh, sweet Jesus, please help me. Jesus, please, please help me.’ That was Lucille.
‘Later to prey on your great-aunts, mother and grandfather to obtain his estate: the idyll denied to you as a baby?’
‘No.’
‘You have told the court that the most ruthless killer this country has ever known, having held you in a cell, having subjected you to the horrors of almost being eaten alive, then mysteriously – perhaps out of the goodness of his heart – allowed you to go free. How many of Picasso’s victims have enjoyed such a reprieve?’
‘None.’
Corn’s not into reprieves.
‘Then why you?’
‘I have no explanation.’
‘You took lessons at the Donavan riding stables?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where follicle-inducing stimulants were in the tack room?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which were used to bring a mare into labour?’
‘Yes.’
‘To which you had access? Since you took riding lessons there?’ A lot of objections and gavel banging going on.
‘Which also applied to the ingredients used to make the formalin gas which killed Conor Donavan?’
‘Yes.’
‘You also told the court that your fingerprints and yours alone were found on the laptop computer used to blackmail Picasso?’
‘Yes.’
‘That, with the beneficiaries dead, only you, as your mother’s and grandfather’s closest living relative, stood to benefit?’
‘Yes.’
And on and on and on. And on. And on.
One reporter wrote that she ‘looked pitiful, as if she was in another dimension, an observer in a dream in which others argued over a future she had no say in’. I was hoping he’d write that with Tom Fred on a roll against her, and what with the temperature hitting the eighties, that – for once – she’d taken off those long sleeves she was always wearing and Chill’d copped that birthmark on her arm and realised who she was. I’d’ve laughed my bollocks off. Still, there are other ways to laugh your bollocks off – not at the verdict: that was always a foregone – four lives each to run concurrently.
‘Wanna know what it’s like to be up for murders you never committed and sit listening to testimony that proves you did it when all along you know you didn’t and you feel like some fucker’s tied you to a chair in a target range with a bullseye round your neck and invited anyone with evidence to fire it at you? Yeah? Then you’ll have some idea of how your daughter felt? That was her up on the stand, ya daft bastard. Bye, Chill.’
That’s how I’d like to have told him. Didn’t matter – he’d find out anyway. After I’d been to see my solicitor my name’d be out in the open and Chilly’d be getting a call that’d take his mind back to the day his baby was taken.
‘Mr Winters, Conor Donavan’s solicitor here. You asked me months ago to notify you if anyone came forward to claim Conor’s estate.’ Standard cop stuff. ‘Well, someone has. And he can prove it.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A Mr Robert Dock.’
‘Robert Dock?’
‘Yes.’
‘Red Dock?’
‘His solicitor did refer to him as Red, yes.’
‘Fuck!’
‘Mr Winters are you—’
Down would go the phone.
Up until now, with my name out of the equation, Lucille was seen as just another sorry case who’d bumped off her family to get their money. With my name in the equation, all that’d change.
‘And all very conveniently after Lucille’s been put away for it, who should step forward but Red Dock’ would ping away in that brain of his until ‘Forget that there’s no evidence against him, Red Dock has motive and he’s well capable of framing people’ told him that Lucille had been a pawn, used, manipulated, all that.
By the time he got round to ‘But why frame Lucille? Why her? And to frame her, Dock’d have to have known she was a Donavan. How? Even she didn’t know till her birth certificate turned up. It was that cert that led her out to Clonkeelin, and within weeks the Donavans were dead. But how reliable is that cert? If Dock’s behind this, its authenticity has to be questionable. Is it hers? If not, she’s not a Donavan. Then who is she?’ The answer’d be on his desk. Thought I’d send him a couple of snapshots – one front-pager showing Lucille fainting when the verdict was read out, another taken by me when she was a baby on the steps of that orphanage I’d taken her to – and a silver St Christopher she’d been wearing round her neck, which I’d kept ’specially for the occasion.
Fuck him. What could he do?
Ask his boss for a retrial?
‘No problem, Chill. Let’s go see the chimp.’
‘Yeah, well, y’see, Your Honour, I’ve been having a bit of a think.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Lucille’s my daughter.’
‘You screwed Anne Donavan?’
‘No, no, I didn’t screw Anne Donavan.’
‘Does Lucille know?’
‘No.’
‘You gonna tell her? Look how she treated her other relatives. Ask Tom Fred.’
‘They’re not her relatives.’
‘But she thought they were. The evidence says so.’
‘That’s because Red Dock set her up.’
‘You can prove that?’
‘Well, no, I …’
‘Why would he set her up?’
‘He hates me.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m a cop.’
‘So’s the supe. Dock didn’t kidnap his daughter.’
‘He hasn’t got a daughter.’
‘You ain’t got a daughter?’
‘Ah, no, my wife and I couldn’t have a …’
‘I didn’t know that. Get him t’fuck outta here.’
Again, what could he do? Go and tell Lucille the good news?
‘Excellent. Can I go home now?’
‘Ah, well, no, not exactly, Lucille. Knowing and proving are two different things.’
‘But …’
‘Sorry, I tried to get that fucking judge to listen to reason but he reckons I’m full of bullshit.’
He’d never be able to jigsaw all the pieces into place, but the name Red Dock would tell him he never would. And the best part’d be that he’d have to live with the fact that he’d put his daughter away and could do sweet fuck all about it.
He’d just have to go around like a lunatic until he could figure out some way to invite me in to play with his tape recorder. That’s
