(2002) Deception aka Sanctum (29 page)

On the way to nursery all the newspapers had headlines about Donna’s body being found. I bought one on the way. It said they’d found Donna’s body, that she was from 18 North Street, Highfields, in Leicester (so she was telling the truth in the video). As a special-value bonus, there was a picture of Donna and Susie, and one of Gow, and the whole terrible tale again.

At the nursery everyone patted my elbow and said they were sorry to hear about, well, you know, as if Donna was a friend of mine.

Harry’s mum was there and smiled over at me. I didn’t want to encourage her attentions, so I sort of waved and yanked Margie out of her coat, trying to effect a quick getaway.

I was easing past a small boy when Harry’s mum sidled over, calling, “Lachlan, hi.” I turned back into the room so that we were talking publicly.

“How are you?” She smiled.

“Fine,” I said. “How are you?”

She said, “Fine,” and dipped her head down, dropping her voice. “I was wonder—”

“How’s Harry? Is he okay?” I said it loudly, making it clear that I didn’t want to have a private conversation, not today.

I was talking so loudly that Mrs. McLaughlin looked over. She had a sleeveless top on, one of those button-up ones with a collar. Her fat arms are red with angry stretch marks down the back like little lava flows.

“She should buy a shirt,” said Harry’s mum quietly, nodding over at her, “and hide her bingo wings.” She smiled at me, raised her eyebrows a little, expecting me to laugh.

In hindsight I can see that she was trying to re-create the success she’d had with the “tanorexic” crack, but coming so soon afterward, it made her seem routinely unkind and wordplay obsessed.

I was tired and distracted and didn’t get the joke this time. I nodded and pressed my lips together, and she had to explain— fat arms, bingo wings. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” I said. “I see, yeah.”

Harry’s mum was wearing a tight red pencil skirt and little heels, which didn’t seem all that appropriate. I know she’s dressing like that for me, but looking at her today, I realized that she’s not my type at all and would probably go to the papers if I as much as touched her bum.

I’m not sure why my interest in her has evaporated. I think it’s because I’m not desperately horny anymore, because of Yeni. I don’t want to feel that I could have shagged either one of them. I want my night with Yeni to mean something and be about more than me being selfish and betrayed and sexually frustrated, but maybe that’s all it was. How depressing.

* * *

Yeni has kindly gone to pick Margie up because I was on the phone with Fitzgerald. He takes sooo long to say anything at all. I’m sure it’s a lawyer’s trick, because they charge by the hour. Yeni stood in front of me in the hall and touched her watch, motioning to the door. I raised a finger. She slumped her shoulders and dropped her head to the side. I shrugged helplessly as Fitzgerald droned on and on and on. Yeni pointed to herself, picked her jacket off the coat rack, and pointed at the door, tipping her head inquisitively. I nodded a thank you, I owe you one, and she kissed the tips of her fingers and wiggled them at me as she opened the front door and set off. I watched her through the window, walking away down the path. She has magnificently pear-shaped buttocks. When she wears those thin trousers, her bum looks like two jumbo plums quivering in a silk hankie.

Fitzgerald kept on talking about the sentencing hearing on Monday, telling me which court, what time. He reminded me not to expect any outcome other than the life sentence and said that there might be journalists there, I might like to think about whether I wanted to give them a statement this time. Every time I brought up the subject of the appeal, he swerved around it.

Finally I said it outright. “Well, Susie won’t be in there very long, anyway. You know, because of the appeal.”

Fitzgerald hummed gruffly. “Dr. Harriot, it was my understanding that you were going to visit your wife yesterday afternoon. Did you not go to see her after all?”

I said yes, I’d been out to see Susie in the Vale, although it wasn’t a very satisfactory visit because the police had turned up at the same time and Susie had to see them first.

“So,” he said (and he even took his time about that), “you are aware of the recent developments in the case, specifically those regarding the discovery of Donna McGovern’s whereabouts?”

“Look,” I said, “I know they found her body up in Cape Wrath.”

He paused for a moment, as if waiting to see whether I would be adding to that statement. “Did your wife tell you, Dr. Harriot, that her wedding ring was discovered under Ms. McGovern’s body?”

I was shocked and defensive. “What? That’s rubbish. How could they possibly know it was Susie’s wedding ring? They all look exactly the bloody same.”

“No,” said Fitzgerald, getting to the point. “When your wife was sacked from her job, she reported her wedding ring missing. She was quite concise about the inscription inside when she gave a description to the prison authorities. The ring found with Ms. McGovern has S&L’92 CORFU4EVER engraved inside it.”

The inscription sounded puerile when he said it. It was a secret wedding vow, a commitment to keep on loving each other as we had that first holiday. I asked him whether Susie knew about this yesterday.

“Of course, Dr. Harriot. The police would certainly have mentioned it to her yesterday. It’s a tremendously significant find. It certainly alters any possible course of action we might take over the case. In the event that we pursued an appeal against your wife’s conviction for Mr. Gow’s murder, she would inevitably be tried for Donna McGovern’s death. We need to ask ourselves whether that is an efficacious use of your resources and funds, given that a success in one suit can only lead to another charge being levied and, in every potentiality, proved against your wife.”

I put the phone down and came up here just to be alone for a while. Margie and Yeni are back. I can hear them playing in the back garden.

I’m trying not to take onboard what Fitzgerald said and what it all means. No wonder Susie was beside herself at the visit. No wonder. I can’t even mentally berate her for not filling me in, because she would have had to explain the consequences, and I can’t even think about them.

chapter twenty-nine

I CAN’T SLEEP, AND NOW I DON’T HAVE ANY OLD PEOPLE TO BLAME it on. The smoking isn’t helping, that’s for sure. Alarmingly, the crown broke off my tooth and fell out in my mouth at dinner this evening. It’s a lower molar. I was eating some microwaved lasagna, bit down, and the porcelain on the cap just snapped off. I had a flush of adrenaline and thought for a moment that all my teeth were flooding out of my mouth. When I looked at the lump of porcelain on the tabletop, I found it was a dull yellow, yet it matches all my other teeth. The dentist’s receptionist suggested that it could have been from grinding my teeth when I’m asleep. The only time they can take me is on Monday, after Susie’s court appearance. I can’t imagine that day getting any worse.

I still think we should give the Donna letter to Fitzgerald. I’ll see what Susie says when I go to visit her, but I’m sure we could base an appeal on it. At least it shows that she was telling the truth.

I was watching telly with Yeni, sitting on the opposite settee so that she didn’t think I was expecting anything. She winked at me a couple of times during the commercials, but I didn’t respond. I was sort of waiting for her to take offense, but she didn’t. She stood up at nine-thirty, said goodnight, and slipped out of the room. I watched the news and put the telly off, ready to come up here to work.

I stopped on the landing and knocked on Yeni’s door. I wanted to say sorry for ignoring you there and thanks for a lovely time last night or something. I don’t know what. I just wanted to see her, I suppose. She shouted, “Come in,” and I put my head around the door. She was sitting in her bed, wearing a T-shirt nightie with pink bunnies on it and reading Hello! She dropped the magazine to her lap and wobbled her head back and forth in exasperation. I braced myself for trouble.

“Stephanie of Monaco is trash,” she said, pronouncing it “trush,” saying it as if they’d had a fight and Stephanie was refusing to give back Yeni’s favorite jeans.

I went in and sat next to her on the bed. It felt very exciting, sitting right by her, not knowing whether we would ever touch again. We both had faint smiles on our faces and avoided looking straight at each other. She showed me a picture of the princess looking sulky at a party.

“Is that bad, what she’s doing there?” I pointed to the picture unnecessarily and brushed the back of her finger where she was holding the page. A slight tremor ran through her, emanating from her hand. She blinked slowly and smiled at the page.

“Not so bad, but”— and she shook her head in disapproval, a curl of black hair falling over her face—“trushy dress.”

I smiled and pushed the hair back. “What would you know about trashy, Yeni?” I love the language barrier between us. She doesn’t know my chat-up lines are crap, and we can’t possibly have big conversations about ourselves or our relationship.

She put the magazine down and slid down in the bed, pulling the covers up over her face. “Good night, Lachlan.” She giggled.

I leaned forward to kiss her. I only meant to kiss her on the forehead, but she pushed me off, giggling, and said, “Jyou piss off,” in a heavy accent.

I stood up and pretended to cry. “I’m as sad as Kevin Bacon.”

She was laughing as I shut the door behind me, that big dirty laugh that makes her tits wobble. I won’t try to kiss her again. I don’t want to be pushy, but I hope that it isn’t over between us. Her unavailability coupled with the complete sexual abandonment that lies beneath it is tremendously erotic. I can’t remember if having to strive for sex was always this exciting. It feels as though there’s a live possibility tingling between us in a way that never happens when you know for certain you’re going to touch each other again.

* * *

I’ve been reading the prison-lovers book since I came up here and looking at the pictures of Donna, trying to feel sad about the fact that her body has been found. I can’t remember what I came up here to say, but it was important enough to peel my carcass off the sofa and propel me up three flights of stairs. Possibly I had nothing to say, possibly I just had an urge to be up here, in this small space with a locked door between me and the rest of the world, restoring order through the cunning application of my rudimentary secretarial skills.

* * *

It seems bizarre that this article was published only three months ago:

Box 2 Document 12 “Riverside Ripper Appeal to Go Ahead,” Scotsman, 8/30/98

This box is getting a bit full. I should get a new one.

A fresh appeal hearing was announced today for Andrew Gow, the Glasgow man convicted of the 1993 Riverside Ripper murders. The failure of the police to stem the murders of five Glasgow prostitutes in the early nineties led to the calls for the formation of a US-style EPCU policing database, capable of cross-referencing cases nationwide and identifying patterns. Gow, who was convicted on the basis of a confession, has become the subject of a local campaign for a retrial following the discovery of two new victims, apparently killed by the same offender. Gina Wilson and Nicola Hall both met their deaths while Gow was in prison. Samples found at the scene match the DNA profile found on the previous victims. It calls into question the use of DNA profiling when samples are degraded and the presentation of degrees of probability in DNA cases. Since his original confession, Gow has consistently denied committing the original series of murders.

The appeal will be heard on September 2 and is expected to attract international press attention. Mr. Gow was denied bail pending the hearing, but this is not thought to reflect his chance of a successful appeal, rather, the lack of reliable risk assessment reports at this time.

This was because Susie had been sacked. They had to get the reports redone by someone else because Susie’s were challengeable.

A spokesman for Gow’s new wife, Donna McGovern, 23, made a brief statement outside the court hearing in Glasgow: “Mrs. Gow is absolutely over the moon and delighted with the news.” The couple plan to move away as soon as Mr. Gow is released.

See our DNA Special page 13: Racial Profiling, Probability, and How Hundreds Become Thousands on the Stand

I don’t want to read about appeals just now really. It’s twelve-ten and I should go downstairs and lie in bed with my eyes shut tight, straining to relax. I’ll stop typing at one. I can’t even get a cup of tea because my tooth’s heat-sensitive. I’ll put a hot-water bottle in my bed, come back up here, and definitely stop at one.

Box 2 Document 13 Notes on Women Who Marry Murderers

REASONS FOR MARRYING

1. Status, gives them social significance, attention-seeking.

2. Vicarious celebrity.

3. Vicarious murder.

4. Erotomania: killers ultimate macho men.

5. Inadequate intelligence.

6. Passion is fueled by deprivation of the physical presence of the other; suffering and anguish mistaken for passion.

All of which seem to apply to Donna.

PROFILE OF WOMEN:

1. Catholic; subjugation of women and sexual repression of Church ties in nicely to absent husband.