Lying in Wait (25 page)

There were photographs face downwards, and I gingerly turned them over to find that they were photographs of me. I felt better. I shouldn’t have, but I delved into the box again and found pictures of me cut from magazines, and then underneath there were yellowing newspaper cuttings. I lifted them out and opened them up. They were dizzily familiar. The cuttings were dated November and December 1980. All of the reports about my sister’s disappearance. Laurence was certainly dedicated in his search. But then I stopped and thought how could he have got these? I’d only met him last year. It didn’t make sense. There was something else. A matchbox wrapped in tissue paper. My hands shook as I pulled it open, all regard for Laurence’s privacy gone.

I turned the broken identity bracelet over in my hands. The engraving was there:
Marnie.
One end of it was broken, but I could see that the clasp was stained crimson red where Annie had picked it up before her nail varnish had dried on the day I had given it to her.

I jumped up from my seat, knocking the items on to the floor. I tried to rationalize all the thoughts that were zooming around my head, but there was no way Laurence could have got that bracelet from anyone except Annie. He had the car; he had the hat, the bracelet; he had cut out newspaper reports about her. The cogs turned in my head as Lydia returned, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying, couldn’t believe all the evidence that surrounded me. I tried to remember how he had come into our lives, Dad telling me that this guy in the dole office had taken special care of him, long before I met Laurence. He hadn’t written the Annie letters to comfort us, but to throw us off track.

Annie’s killer wasn’t dead. Laurence killed her. Laurence killed my sister. I ran, pushing past Lydia, ran for the front door, down the driveway to the gate. As I reached the gate, Laurence drove in. I stopped dead in my tracks.

‘Where are you going? What’s happened? Are you OK?’

And then I began to run again, as fast as I could. He jumped out of the car, calling after me, and then he began to run too, but he was still quite heavy and I outran him. I ran and ran until he was out of sight, and then I ducked into the nearest phone box and dialled 999.

Laurence
threw me across the room. I never knew he had such a temper. Though I suppose he must have inherited it from Andrew.

He came storming into the house, winded and red in the face. I had cleaned up the spillings of the box and put them away, together with the photo album.

‘What did you do? What did you say to her?’

‘I should warn you, Laurence, that you are probably going to be arrested very soon.’

‘What? What are you talking about? Karen is terrified! She ran away from me. What happened?’

‘You should not have betrayed me. I gave you every opportunity to come home, and still you chose that tart’s sister over me.’

He was apoplectic, and through gritted teeth he snarled at me, ‘What did you say to her?’

‘I didn’t say anything directly, but I presented her with the evidence.’

‘What evidence?’

‘The evidence that you murdered her sister.’

‘You … but it was Dad … and you.’ He shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t do that. That doesn’t even make sense. She would never believe that.’

‘You killed Annie Doyle. I have tried to protect you, but I cannot stand by you any longer.’

‘Oh my God, you are more insane than ever!’

‘It’s all here. Karen has seen all the evidence.’

‘Why are you being like this? What twisted game are you playing now?’

‘It’s not a game. Motherhood was never a game. You rejected me. Even though you knew how much that hurt me. You chose her over me. I can do what I want with you, and now I choose to send you to jail.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Mum, you’re talking in riddles. What exactly did you say to her?’

‘I showed her the photo of you standing beside Dad’s old car. I told her you were driving it at seventeen.’

‘But I wasn’t. You taught me to drive years later.’

‘You are so forgetful, darling. Your father taught you to drive, in the Jaguar. You insisted.’

Laurence pulled at his shirt collar and leaned on the piano to hold himself up.

‘And the photo of you as a baby, wearing Granddad’s hat? I told her how you were very attached to that hat until … let’s see … about six years ago, when it suddenly vanished.’

‘That’s a lie! I never wore it!’

‘You choose not to remember what doesn’t suit you. I gave her all the cuttings and vile scribblings and the tatty cheap bracelet you kept hidden in the hole behind your writing desk. Karen recognized it straight away. And while you were gone, I showed her the tomb in the back garden that you so kindly built.’

He lost his temper and came at me, spitting and red-faced. He physically threw me across the room. The coffee table broke my fall, but I could tell immediately that my wrist was injured. And then we heard the sirens. I glared at him, this ungrateful brat in whom I had invested my life.

I kept my voice very low. ‘You should have obeyed me. I’ll probably marry Malcolm now. You have left me no choice.
We will make each other miserable, but he will never leave me. He is not the type.’

And then everything dissolved into slow motion and it was as if I was going back in time. Laurence’s colour was very high, his breathing came in rasps and his eyes stared wildly about him. He clutched at his chest and then fell to the ground. Just like his father. There was a blue flashing light beyond the window and a hammering at the door. I let the guards in and I screamed at them to get an ambulance. But Laurence’s eyes had rolled up into his head, like Annie’s, and his body went limp, like Diana’s. I was hysterical. I had taken it too far, just like with Diana.

When the ambulance came, I was allowed to travel with Laurence to the hospital. As I was being helped up the steep step, I saw Karen weeping in the back seat of one of the garda cars that were scattered all over our lawn.

In the end, I got what I wanted. My boy will be home with me for ever. He will never argue and he will do as he is told. The heart attack he suffered cut off the supply of oxygen to the brain. This means he is mentally a child, and physically he is slightly damaged. His mouth hangs open and his feet turn inwards. The staff in the rehabilitation centre, knowing of his crime, were inclined to treat him cruelly. I was the person that made sure he did his daily exercises. I control every single thing about him, and he does not question me.

He is my child again, so there was no need for me to marry Malcolm, as I will not be alone. Laurence had inherited his father’s and grandmother’s weak blood vessels, though the medics later said that the levels of Phentermine in his system and his rapid weight gain and loss were also contributing factors to his cardiac arrest.

The guards invaded my home and I was questioned for hour
upon hour. They found all of the evidence that incriminated Laurence, and they dug up the pond as I might have predicted, and found the remains of Annie Doyle. I was not allowed into my home as forensic investigators went through everything, but I spent my days in the hospital and my nights at Malcolm’s as a media storm began to gather:

‘Prostitute murdered by schoolboy’.

‘Murder suspect has heart attack when arrested’.

‘Top model Karen Fenlon was well known to the man suspected of her sister’s murder’.

Her name was Fenlon. Her
married
name. She never even had any right to my Laurence. The audacity of her to think she could bewitch my son, with her uncouth accent and appalling table manners. All of her magazine photos were reproduced alongside headlines that screamed ‘Sister of murdered prostitute’.

Because of Laurence’s medical condition, there was no possibility of his standing trial. So the newspapers could never name him, though Dublin being such a small city, anybody who was anybody knew within days that Laurence was the suspect. I had to keep my wits about me during this time. I detested the publicity, but I knew that if I ended up back in the clinic, if I was sectioned, Finn and Rosie would get power of attorney and sell Avalon, so I had to stay focused and clear-headed. Malcolm held me up.

Everybody was shocked. None of Laurence’s workmates ever suspected him of being capable of such a thing. Helen, surprisingly, was inconsolable. She visited me several times, trying to figure out how he had hidden it from her, trying to find an excuse for him. I wept bitter tears with her, but claimed that sometimes Laurence had been prone to violent outbursts. My wrist had been broken in our final confrontation, so I had sufficient evidence. Helen worked out that she had been dating Laurence at the time of Annie’s disappearance. She never
realized that she was his alibi, because nobody could ever pin down the exact time and date of Annie’s death.

Apparently, Karen Fenlon abandoned her modelling career and returned to her husband, who was foolish enough to take her back.

Three months after Laurence’s heart attack, I was allowed to return to Avalon. I spent days erasing all traces of the garda investigation in my home. Malcolm came and filled in the pond again and planted rose bushes. Then Laurence was released into my custody. He was only semi-verbal, but extremely docile. He would never be able to read or write again, would never be able to take care of himself. He needed some help with feeding but could manage the toilet and most of his dressing. He babbled senselessly, but he knew the word ‘Mum’ and could point at things he needed.

Malcolm hung around for months, trying to console me, but thankfully, although he dealt with mental instability on a daily basis, he found mental disability more difficult to cope with, and eventually he drifted out of our lives, except when I needed him about the house for some manly task.

Legally, as Laurence was no longer capable, I managed to get the cottage registered in my name. I sold it immediately. We would have to live on the proceeds for some considerable time. We would have to make the money last. The government provided a disability payment for Laurence, and with my widow’s pension it meant that we would not starve. After a certain period, Helen was our only visitor, apart from an occasional social worker. But mostly, it is just Laurence and I. I don’t think he understands anything much, but often, very often, I find him standing in the kitchen, looking out of the window. I ask him what he is looking at, but he doesn’t respond and stares vacantly.

At
the time, I was so distraught that I couldn’t trust my own judgement. I had been wrong about everything. Dessie was incredibly kind to me. He offered a solid shoulder and assured me that everything would be OK. Ma and Da were shocked. Laurence had fooled them too, especially Da. Ma thinks that Laurence probably intended to kill me too, but we’ll never know now.

When I think of the nights I shared with him, I want to pull clumps of hair from my head. Sometimes, I do. The guards warned us to stay away from Avalon after Laurence got out of hospital. I didn’t want to go near the place, but Da badly wanted to beat the living daylights out of him. I am still so angry that he got off scot-free. Laurence murdered my sister and I never got to know how or why, and even if he is brain-damaged, I don’t think that is enough punishment because he doesn’t have to live with himself in the way I do.

Because I had some kind of public profile then, Yvonne could do nothing about protecting me from the media. Ma and Da’s house was besieged, and somehow they found my flat. They couldn’t name Laurence, but they could name me and Annie, and reprint photographs of me alongside lurid headlines. Dessie offered me a place to stay and I went home with him. I drank myself into oblivion in those first few weeks. I was a mess. The police interrogations seemed endless. Detective Mooney had been wrong about the murderer being dead, though they couldn’t rule out the possibility that Laurence’s father had helped him, despite Lydia apparently
insisting that he would never have done such a thing. Poor Lydia. This time, the guards were taking it seriously, now that there was a middle-class Cabinteely man involved.

It was three days after I had called the guards from the phone box that I realized the significance of the garden monument that Laurence had built. My suspicions proved to be true. The guards had sealed off the house and were searching through everything. They found some essays in Laurence’s handwriting about dating Annie and having sex with her. I still feel sick at the thought of it.

I never intended to get back with Dessie, not then, but he was so rock steady and so ready to forgive. I thought if we got back together, I could make things right and turn back the clock to when we’d been happy. Yvonne thought that the notoriety would die down after a while, and that I could resume my career, as I was still in demand in Europe, but the whole modelling scene seemed so stupid and trivial to me. Dessie said the money would be handy, but he let me make my own decision. Eventually, I got a job in Arnotts’ shoe department. Dessie was as protective as ever, but that was what I needed back then. He tried not to comment on my drinking in the beginning.

We have a house in Lucan and two children, Debbie and Stevie. I should be happy. I should be able to let go of the past. And I should never have gone back to Dessie. After a while his protective ways turned into full-scale intimidation and bullying. He has never raised a hand to me again, but he doesn’t have to because he knows that I am afraid to ever leave him. Our daughter drives him up the wall. She was wild like Annie when she was a teenager, and he blamed me. I drank more wine and blocked it all out. Stevie is a good boy. He’s a lorry driver, getting married this year. I don’t
have much of a relationship with him. Dessie and Stevie stick together. Debbie and Stevie stick together. Nobody sticks to me.

When the news scandals broke in the 1990s about the Mother and Baby homes, I thought about looking for Marnie, but Dessie went ballistic when I mentioned it.

‘Jesus Christ, Karen. Remember how your last search went? Are you stupid or what?’

I am stupid. A fool.

The only person I see on an occasional basis is Helen. I’m not sure why we still meet up, but we do. Every six months or year or so, we’ll go to a pub and rehash the whole story, as if we were old soldiers reliving our days at the front together. Helen is now a pharmaceutical sales rep on her second husband, a lab technician. She never had children. We still don’t like each other very much, but we are somehow bonded by our experiences of Laurence Fitzsimons.

She still visits Avalon. I didn’t understand why she bothered, but she said that in the beginning Lydia paid her to do shopping and cleaning and to help with caring for Laurence. Helen says it’s hard to see Laurence as a murderer when she is giving him a bath and spoon-feeding him his dinner. I can’t see him as anything else. In the last few years, Laurence and his mother have lived in just three rooms downstairs. Lydia has run out of money, anything left of any value has been sold off, and she can no longer pay Helen.

‘So why are you still helping them?’ I asked recently.

‘For the house!’ she said triumphantly.

She admitted that she had had papers drawn up. About ten years ago, she came to an arrangement with Lydia. She got Lydia to make a will, leaving the house to her, as long as Helen comes once a week with shopping and anything they might need. The arrangement is that Lydia can stay
there until she dies. Lydia and Laurence never leave the house at all. Helen says Avalon is worth millions now, even though it’s in bad repair, and I don’t doubt it.

I feel sorry for myself a lot of the time, and I really need to stop drinking soon, but the person I feel most sorry for is Lydia. How must it feel to be the mother and full-time carer of a killer? She must be well over eighty years old. Helen says she has dementia now. I think that must be a blessing.