Authors: Julie Parsons
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said out loud to no one in particular as he pushed his way through the tangled mixture of gorse, trailing briars, and buddleia gone wild. ‘What on earth do
we have here?’
He took a deep breath and lifted away the white plastic cover. What lay beneath was human, that much was obvious. But not much else. It was swaddled in a white sheet, wrapped tightly,
criss-crossed like a large bandage, over and around its head, torso and legs. It lay on its back, its feet pointing towards the sky. It looked small and neat, a woman, he thought, or perhaps a
prepubescent teenager, or an old person, shrunk with age and osteoporosis. Its arms appeared to have been folded over its chest, reminding him, for all the world, of a crusader and his wife he had
once seen lying on a slab in an old English church somewhere in the north of England. York was it? He couldn’t quite remember. He squatted down to have a closer look. Something with very
sharp teeth had torn at the material, pulling it away, revealing the skin underneath. Bite marks gouged into the body’s pale flesh on the thighs and stomach. But there were no signs of
bloodstains anywhere, on the sheet itself or on the green rubberized tarpaulin on which the body lay.
Jack stood up and moved away. He tasted his breakfast, bitter, curdled. He turned towards the sea, which today at high tide lay smooth and flat, milky blue, just on the other side of the railway
line, stretching across Dublin Bay as far as Howth Head. He breathed deeply, filling his lungs with cleansing salt air. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket, covered his face and turned back
to the body.
‘Where did this come from?’ He touched the groundsheet with the toe of his shoe, looking over at the group of uniformed guards, some of whom were busily organizing the crime scene
cordon. ‘Did one of you lot put this down?’
Of course they hadn’t. Who did he think they were, fucking amateurs? They knew better than to interfere. They knew all about preserving the scene, all that stuff they’d had drummed
into them time after time.
‘So, tell all. Who found it, and when?’
It was, it seemed, a local authority surveyor. A young lad, newly qualified, sent down to the stretch of wasteland along by the railway line to begin the preliminary work on the new park the
Corporation were planning. Jack could hear the raucous screech as he vomited, somewhere just out of sight behind a large sycamore tree.
‘He stepped on it and fell over. Landed right on top of it. It was wrapped in the groundsheet. All nicely parcelled up.’ Tom Sweeney filled in the details.
‘So why isn’t it still nicely parcelled up, as you so delicately put it?’
‘Because,’ Sweeney’s tone was resigned but caustic, ‘because, as he was getting to his feet he couldn’t help but hold on to the body and in doing so he pulled the
plastic off it, and that was when he realized what it was.’
‘It?’ Jack knelt down, index finger and thumb clamped over his nostrils. ‘It? Of course we don’t think it’s an “it”, do we, Sweeney? What’re the
odds? Not great, I’d say. How about two to one that this here nice little parcel is a “she”?’
They waited in the sunshine for Johnny Harris, the pathologist, to arrive. In the old days, before they’d all become so scientific, so careful about procedure, they’d have pulled off
the sheet themselves and had a good look. But not any longer. Now it all had to be done by the book. And the book said don’t rush into anything. So they waited. Jack moved away and climbed
the stairs to the old iron bridge that crossed the railway line. He rested his eyes on the sea, gazing across the bay to Howth in the distance. He dreaded what was lying back there under the briars
and nettles. He remembered the days when he had relished it all. The quest, the chase, the hunt, the tracking down. Now all he felt was the pain of the family, the fear of failure. He looked back
down to where the body lay covered. He wasn’t even sure how he was going to react when he looked at it. If he could even bring himself to look at it, at her, as she was now, lying there,
rotting.
They were all silent as Johnny Harris carefully pulled the sheet away from her face. Her eyes were open. She stared up at them as if in wonder.
‘Female,’ he said, and someone laughed nervously.
Above their heads a blackbird burst into song, trilling loudly up and down the scale. A train passed by and, as a sudden breeze blew in from the sea, the trees and bushes around them shook their
branches, the bright green summer foliage whispering and hissing.
Johnny Harris peeled some more of the sheet away.
‘Age? Late teens, early twenties.’ He moved her neck gently with his gloved hands.
‘Probable cause of death? Strangulation.’ He worked his way down her bare white body, revealing her arms, folded, one over the other. He touched the piece of cloth that was threaded
through her small fingers.
‘What do you reckon, Jack?’ Jack moved closer and leaned over. ‘Looks like a man’s tie, doesn’t it? Those diagonal stripes, the same colours repeated. Looks like a
school tie, university, something like that.’
‘How about the Garda Representative Association?’ Tom Sweeney put in. And they all sniggered again.
Jack watched as Johnny Harris carefully peeled away the covering from her lower abdomen, her genital area and her upper thighs.
He tried to remember the words of the Act of Contrition. They hovered on his lips. He closed his eyes.
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee, and I confess my sins above
every other evil.
He lifted his hand and blessed himself. Johnny Harris pointed his finger at the bruises that mottled her skin. He differentiated between the marks that had been made by a fist before death and
the teeth marks that had occurred more recently.
‘Rodents,’ he said, ‘possibly even cats.’
There were small puckered scars on the wrinkled skin of her knees. Traces of childhood, he thought, falls from swings, and bicycles, grazes and scratches. Her feet were thin and white, with high
insteps. Her nails had been painted scarlet. Like Rosa’s toenails. She had shown them to him this morning as he was buckling her sandals. Look, Daddy, aren’t they pretty? Mummy did it
for me.
‘Look.’ Johnny Harris pointed again. ‘See how they’ve grown. Even since she’s been dead.’ Jack looked at the thin line of white that showed above her cuticle.
Then he stood back and watched as they carefully placed her inside the body bag. The metallic zing of the closing zip pushed all other sounds away. Johnny Harris peeled off his gloves. They dangled
from his hands. Like an insect’s discarded skin, Jack thought, and felt sick again.
‘I’ll give you a call when I’ve had a closer look,’ he said, stepping out of his overalls.
Jack nodded. ‘Fingerprint her, will you? Just in case.’
A name, that was what he needed. First and foremost. And with the name would come its own particular list of suspects, motives and opportunities. And with a bit of old-fashioned luck everything
else would fall into place.
It was early evening by the time he saw her again. He was tired. A thorough search of the wasteland by the railway had revealed nothing of interest. A heap of old beer cans and
plastic cider bottles. A variety of shoes. Plenty of dog shit and some of the human variety. But no footprints, no handy dropped clues. None of the junk with which the average detective novel was
littered. Unfortunately, he thought sourly, feeling a headache work its way up his neck and settle itself behind his eyes. They’d already started their house-to-house questioning. So far, so
predictable. No one had seen anything unusual. Of course, there was always such a large amount of traffic turning off the sea road at Monkstown, heading down the hill to the car park next to the
station. Even more since it had been extended recently, making room for extra commuters. One old biddy in a dingy flat on the top floor of the terrace of houses above told him there were always odd
goings on there, night and day. Jack noticed the pair of binoculars on the window sill.
‘Bird watching?’ he asked, lifting them up and putting them to his eyes.
She grinned broadly. There was a great view from her front window. And of course the added bonus that the car park was well lit at night-time.
‘Who’ye looking for?’ she asked, pouring him weak tea from a tarnished silver pot.
‘To be honest, we haven’t a clue.’ He sniffed the smoky-bacon flavour of the Earl Grey, turning down the offer of milk.
‘Was she killed down there?’ She picked up the binoculars and fiddled with the focus.
‘You tell me. At this point in time you probably know more about it than I do.’
‘Well, I’d say, if you want my opinion, she wasn’t,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised how quiet it is here at night-time. I don’t sleep much any longer.
Not now I’ve the sleep of eternity waiting for me just around the corner. I’ve often seen people going into those bushes. Often. But I’ve always seen them come out
again.’
He asked Johnny Harris the same question. Was she killed down there, among the briars and the nettles?
He shook his head. ‘I’d say not. I’d say from the distribution of blood in her tissues that she was lying there for three, maybe four or even five days. I’d say she was
placed there, rather than dumped. The way she was lying was a bit too careful if you see what I mean. On her back, her arms folded, her legs together. I’d say she was put there before rigor
mortis set in. Easier to handle her that way. That would make it within seven hours or so of death. And another thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘She was washed. It’s normal in these situations for the bowel and bladder to evacuate. But there’s no sign of urine or faeces on her body. Also she was raped. Vaginally and
anally. Considerable force was used. It looks to me like she was penetrated with something sharp. A small knife, perhaps, or a scissors. But again, all blood has been washed away. She’s very
clean, apart, that is, from the inevitable decomposition. And before you ask, no, there’s no semen.’
‘And how did she die? Did she die from the rape?’
‘No. She was strangled. From the abrasions it looks to me like it was something like a clothes line. A synthetic material that burns the flesh easily.’
‘So it wasn’t the tie?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. The marks on her neck aren’t consistent with that type of cloth. But it’s interesting, unusual, the way that the tie has been
twisted through her fingers. Like so.’
He pulled back the covering green sheet and lifted up her small hands. He separated her fingers to demonstrate. Jack felt his knees soften and weaken, the sweat break out on his forehead. He
forced himself to look.
‘She’s very fair, isn’t she? Is her hair naturally that colour?’
‘Completely. Very unusual. She reminds me of a Swedish girlfriend I had once. Practically white her hair was.’
They stood in silence. The girl’s hair was long and very thick. It was parted in the middle. It lay now on either side of her small heart-shaped face.
‘What else can you tell me?’
Johnny Harris sighed. ‘She was pregnant. About twelve weeks, I’d say. She also had some liver damage consistent with alcohol or drug abuse. And there are scars on her arms, here.
See?’ He pointed to the marks in the crook of her elbow.
‘But she’s clean. No heroin. No drugs at all. Not now anyway. And she’s healthy apart from all that. And well looked after.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Her teeth. Regular visits to the dentist. A few fillings, but not many. And some evidence that she’d had orthodontic treatment at some stage in her life. And see here, these teeth
at the side.’ He pulled open her mouth and pointed with the end of his biro. ‘The X-rays show that she’s had root-canal fillings and crowns. Very expensive. If you’re asking
my opinion, I’d say she was once a nice middle-class girl.’
Which wasn’t what the fingerprints showed. The fingerprints told a different story. Within the last three years she had been arrested fifteen times. For possession of heroin, for
possession with intent to supply, with soliciting, with assault, with larceny. Pearse Street had her records, her photograph and her name.
‘Judith Hill? Jesus. We know her well.’ The station sergeant looked at him in amazement. ‘And you’re telling me that Judith’s dead? A year or so ago I
wouldn’t have been surprised. She was up to her neck in an awful load of shit. But she’s been on the straight and narrow for the last while. Ever since she came out of prison.
She’s even going to college. Trinity, would you believe? Just across the road so she can drop in from time to time and say hallo. Not.’ He paused and sniggered, then looked down at the
file on the counter in front of him, turning it around so Jack could see the picture clearly. ‘Christ, are you sure it’s Judith? I only saw her recently. Last week or the week before.
She was looking great. Oh, good God almighty, her father will go mad.’
Her father, Dr Mark Hill. His name, followed by a string of letters, on the brass plate screwed to the front railings of the tall red-brick house in the quiet square in Rathmines. It was late
now. After ten. Jack slumped in the passenger seat of the car, while Tom Sweeney parked it carefully.
‘I hate this,’ he said. ‘I fucking hate this.’ It was later still by the time he got home to the apartment overlooking the harbour. Such a relief to be on his own. No
need to explain himself, make excuses, justify his sour mood. He walked into the bathroom, shedding his clothes, dropping them in small heaps on the floor. He turned on the taps. He walked back
into the kitchen. He poured a double measure of gin into a tall glass, added ice and tonic, and a slice of lime. He drank half of it in one swallow and topped it up again. He got into the bath, lay
back and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to think about all that had happened tonight, but it wouldn’t go away. The scene kept on replaying itself over and over against his closed
eyelids. The father’s denial, his refusal to accept that it might be his daughter who was dead. His insistence that she had changed. She wasn’t involved in any of that
‘business’, as he called it, any longer.