I Saw You (16 page)

Mark touched his neck. One finger slipped beneath his shirt collar. He swivelled in his chair. His face took on a rictus that McLoughlin had seen many times before. On the faces of the dead.
‘Look I’m sorry. I don’t want to upset you,’ he began.

‘Upset me? You’re not upsetting me,’ Porter shrilled. ‘It was an accident, that was all. A silly accident. I was trying to see if I could do a Tarzan. I’d made some
rope out of creepers I found in the woods. And I wanted to see if my plaiting would stand up to my weight. It was an accident, that’s all.’ He tugged at his shirt collar, twisted
awkwardly and McLoughlin saw the rough redness of the scar that encircled his throat.

‘It wasn’t just Marina, though, was it, Mark? It was Rosie and – who were the others involved? Poppy mentioned a couple of names. Someone called Ben, a Gilly and
Sophie?’

Porter leaped to his feet. ‘I want you to go now,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any longer. It has nothing to do with you or anyone else. They didn’t
bully me. I don’t know why people keep on saying they did. We were just having a bit of fun, that was all. It was a bit of fun.’ He walked past McLoughlin and into the hall. ‘Get
out.’

‘Hold on a minute. There’s no need to be like that.’ McLoughlin stood. He picked up the photograph again. Marina smiled at him. Her wide, generous smile. Mark was directly in
front of her. He looked very small in comparison with the others on either side. The expression on his face was one of sadness. He had been a lonely little boy.

‘I’ll take that, thank you very much.’ Mark snatched the picture from him. ‘I’ve told you to get out. Before I have to put you out.’

‘Hang on, just hang on.’ McLoughlin raised his hands. ‘I’m not so sure what your business is here. Sally Spencer asked me to call in and check out the house. I’m
doing what she asked. And, for that matter, I’m not so sure she’d want you here.’

Porter’s face hardened and he took a step towards McLoughlin. His fists were bunched in tight balls. He dragged open the front door. McLoughlin stepped backwards and stumbled through it.
He thought for a moment he would fall. He put one hand down to the path to steady himself, then stood.

‘How dare you?’ Porter screamed. ‘How dare you question me? Marina was my beloved. Get out of here and leave me alone.’

McLoughlin opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. He hurried towards the front gate. As he got into the car he looked back at the small figure standing in the doorway. Poor bloke,
he thought. A lot of baggage on those shoulders. No wonder he lifts weights. Must be the only way to carry that load.

It was nearly one o’clock by the time he got home. He walked through the dark house, too tired to put on any lights. He cleaned his teeth and stripped off his clothes in
the bathroom, felt his way into the bedroom. He pulled back the duvet and sank down on to the cool bottom sheet. It had been a long day. He closed his eyes and turned over on to his stomach,
punching the pillow into shape beneath him. Sleep came quickly.

And all too quickly left him again. Something had woken him. He sat up slowly. He had been dreaming. He couldn’t remember exactly what about, but Mark Porter had been in it somewhere. He
had unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it down. The scar around his neck shone brightly.
Look
, he said,
look what I can do
. He began to unzip the scar, drawing an index finger and thumb
slowly from left to right.
Look, look at me
, he said, his voice high-pitched and child-like. He put his hands over his ears and began to lift. His head separated itself from his trunk. The
cut was smooth. A small dribble of blood trickled down on to his chest. He placed his severed head on the floor beside him.
Now
, he said, his mouth opening and closing like a
ventriloquist’s dummy,
now, look at me. Aren’t I clever?
And he laughed with a manic, high-pitched shriek.

It was the shriek that must have woken him. McLoughlin sat back against the headboard. He was sweating and his mouth was foul and dry. He got up and walked through the house into the kitchen. He
filled a pint glass with water and gulped it down. It tasted metallic. Reminded him of blood. He spat into the basin, rinsed the glass and filled it again. He walked back into the sitting room and
sat down on the sofa. And saw the lights of a car track across the wall. Headlights, bright and undipped. They stopped, illuminating the room so McLoughlin was suddenly aware that he was naked and
the curtains were open. He swivelled around, reluctant to stand and tried to see who was outside. But the lights were too bright. And as he got up, holding a cushion over his genitals, the lights
slid towards the hall, then disappeared so the room was dark.

He went into the bathroom and pulled his robe from the back of the door. He wrapped it around himself and walked back into the sitting room. He sat at the desk and gently touched the
computer’s keyboard. It purred and sighed like a small friendly mammal. He clicked on the icon for Google and entered the words ‘The Lodge, school, Dublin’. He hit the enter
button and waited. Seconds later he was scanning the school’s official website. He opened the home page. There was a link to the archive. He followed the instructions. He selected the year,
1987. He sat back and waited. And there, on the screen, was the photograph that Mark Porter had shown him. He used the zoom button to scan the individual faces. Marina was easy to find. And so was
Porter. And there was Poppy. They had called her the ugly sister. He could see why. She was scowling at the camera. Her face was round and heavy. Her hair was pulled back in two thick plaits and
black-rimmed glasses obscured her eyes. The girl standing next to her couldn’t have been more different. Her face was round too, but pretty and dimpled. She was laughing, happy and
carefree.

McLoughlin clicked on her face and her name appeared.

‘Rosie Atkinson’, the caption said. Poppy still used the family name, he noticed. It marked her out in a world where women invariably took their husband’s name on marriage. He
began to click randomly on the faces in the photograph and each was identified. Here was Ben Roxby, and next to him a pretty girl with straight fair hair. ‘Gillian Kearon’ was the name
that appeared. And next to her another girl, her hair as blonde as any Scandinavian pop singer. She was Sophie Fitzgerald and in brackets the title (Hon.). The Honourable Sophie Fitzgerald.
McLoughlin sat back in his chair. He’d heard of her. She was a regular in the gossip columns. Come to think of it, he was certain he’d seen a few photos of her this afternoon as
he’d been flicking through the magazines in Dr Simpson’s waiting room. In the winner’s enclosure at the Curragh. Holding the bridle of a horse as beautiful as she was. He scanned
across the picture from left to right, reading the names aloud. Not a Murphy or a Lynch or a Kelly anywhere to be seen. And just one name in the Irish language: de Paor, Dominic. He was
distinctive-looking. Taller than the other boys. Broad shoulders. A jutting nose and crisp black hair. He wasn’t much like his father. He must have got his height and build from his mother,
McLoughlin thought. He tried to remember what he knew about her. Mentally ill, unstable, in and out of hospital. He must ask Janet Heffernan more.

He finished examining the photograph. He had recognized a few other names. The son of an oil-rich sheikh with a stud farm in Kildare. The daughters of the French ambassador and the sons of the
few remnants of the Irish aristocracy who still had their seats in the House of Lords. He wondered about Mark Porter’s background. If he owned that house in Fitzwilliam Square he was doing
all right. He wondered about the problem with his growth. He must remember to ask Johnny Harris about it. About the drugs he was taking.

He pressed the print button and waited for the photograph to slide out. The reproduction wasn’t that good but it was good enough. He turned back to the screen. He was impressed by the
quality of the website. A lot of thought and attention to detail had gone into its design. Each year included a letter from the headmaster. He began to read. It was dull enough. Rugby matches
played and won, hockey matches played and won. A cultural trip to London, a skiing trip to Val d’Isère for the senior classes after Christmas. Scholarships awarded by Oxford and
Cambridge. And then a more sober note crept into the jolly narrative.

The letter was signed ‘Anthony Watson, PhD (Oxon), Headmaster.’

He clicked on the next year. Again the school photograph. He scanned the faces. This time Marina’s was missing. What was it Poppy had said? Marina was expelled. Rosie wasn’t. Neither
was any of the others. They were all in the same places. So there it was. Marina got the boot. The others were disciplined. He moved on to the past pupils’ association. There was the usual
invitation to join, dialogue box for username, password. Links to Engagements, Marriages and Births and the In Memoriam section. He clicked on to it and scrolled through the list. And saw someone
he recognized. Benjamin Samuel Roxby 1970–2004. He clicked on the name. There was a recent photograph. He looked neat and tidy, with close-cropped hair and dark-rimmed glasses. Young for his
age. Still had the schoolboy look. There were several short appreciations. One was written by Dominic de Paor. McLoughlin began to read out loud.

So, Ben Roxby was dead too. A fall from a roof. A tragic accident. That made three of them. Seemed a high rate of attrition for such a small group. Statistically unlikely, he thought.

He got up from the desk and walked back into the kitchen. He opened the glass doors and stepped out on to the terrace. The air was fresh, almost cold. Above him the Plough dug a great furrow
across the sky. He sat down on the bench, leaned back and gazed up at it. Soon, he hoped, he would be out at sea. Nights spent in the wheelhouse. Silence all around, apart from the rush of the
water beneath the hull and the thrum of the wind in the sails. And nothing to see in the darkness but the stars. Paul Brady was a good skipper. He could sail by the stars if need be. He would teach
McLoughlin how to do it. He remembered Brady telling him once about sailing in the Hobart–Fremantle race. And how at night he had realized he didn’t know the names of any of the stars
and constellations. All so different in the southern hemisphere, he had said. Bloody confusing. And McLoughlin had a sudden image of Margaret Mitchell, standing in the dark of an Antipodean night,
her eyes raised to the sky. She would be looking for her daughter, he thought, like a grieving mother from a Greek myth. Trying to find her child in the heavens. Trying to find where Zeus had
placed her.

Johnny Harris could get hold of Ben Roxby’s official cause of death. There would have been an inquest. A sudden and unexplained death. He’d have access to the evidence given. He
might even have done the post-mortem. McLoughlin would call him first thing. Now he stood and stretched. He was tired. He walked back inside and closed the doors behind him. And remembered the look
on Mark Porter’s face earlier that evening. I should have thrown him out of Marina’s house, he thought. Why didn’t I? Was I frightened by him? Have I become an ever bigger coward
now I’m older? Now I don’t have the muscle of the guards behind me?

He moved through the house to his bedroom. He picked up his trousers from the floor and felt in his pocket for Marina’s black pants. He didn’t know what to do with them now. He
lifted the lid to the linen basket. He would put them in with his next wash, then return them to her bedroom. Put them back in their place. I should have confronted Mark Porter, he thought. But I
didn’t. And it wasn’t cowardice. That wasn’t the reason. It was the savage pain in Porter’s face. He looked so helpless, so pathetic. It would have been rubbing his nose in
it. Still, he’d better get on to Sally in the morning. Tell her to get the locks changed.

He yawned deeply and got into bed. He closed his eyes. Think of nice things, his mother always used to say. Think of nice things and boredom will bring sleep quickly. He smiled as he remembered
her. He must go and see her soon. Bring her flowers. He had seen shafts of delphinium in the local florist. She used to grow them. She’d love to see them again. He rolled over on his stomach.
He thought of nice things and, as she had predicted, sleep came quickly.

The delphiniums were the colour of the deep sea. He bought five spikes and watched as the florist tied them with raffia. ‘For someone special?’ she asked, with a
smile.

‘My mother, actually.’ He tapped his credit card against his wallet.

‘How lovely. And it’s not even Mother’s Day.’ She ran the back of her scissors along the strip of raffia. He watched it curl up into a mass of ringlets. ‘Now,
how’s that?’