Case Histories

Forty-eight hours later they took her body out of the canal. She was still wearing her skirt, knee-length green boucle that she'd bought with the Christmas money her father had given her. Her umbrella was found near the bus stop. Her shoes, and some of her clothes, including her good herringbone tweed coat, were found on the bank of the canal, and her handbag was found a week later by the side of the A636. Her blouse was never found, nor was the little gold crucifix that her mother had bought her for her first confirmation. The police thought the chain must have broken and perhaps her killer had taken it as a "souvenir." The only souvenir Jackson had was a little pottery wishing well that Niamh had brought back for him from a trip to Scarborough two years ago. It had wishing you well from Scarborough painted on the side.

What was known was that Niamh had caught her bus home from work as she did every day, and she had got off the bus at her usual stop, and then somewhere along the ten-minute walk from the bus stop to her front door someone must have persuaded (or forced) her into a car and taken her down to the canal, where they had raped her and strangled her, although not necessarily in that order. Jackson moved into her room that night and didn't move out of it until he left home to join the army. He didn't change the sheets on her bed for two months. Even then he was sure he could still smell the old-fashioned violet cologne that she liked to sprinkle on her sheets when she ironed them. For a long time he kept the teacup she had drunk from at breakfast that last day. She was always complaining that no one washed the pots after breakfast. The cup still carried the pink lipstick outline of her mouth, like the ghost of a kiss, and Jackson treasured it for weeks until one morning Francis caught sight of it and threw it out the window onto the concrete of the backyard. Jackson knew that Francis felt guilty that he hadn't picked her up from the bus stop that night. Some dark part of Jackson felt that he was right to feel guilty. After all, if he had picked her up she wouldn't now be under six feet of heavy, wet soil. She would be warm and living flesh, she would be complaining that no one did the washing up, she would be going off to work in the miserable winter mornings and her pink mouth would still be talking and laughing and eating, and kissing Jackson 's reluctant cheek.

One day, six months after the funeral, Francis gave Jackson a lift to school. It was raining, a summer monsoon downpour, and Francis said, "Hop in, our kid." He parked the car at the school gates and took a pack of cigarettes out of the glove compartment and handed the whole pack to Jackson. Jackson said a surprised, "Thanks," and opened the car door, but Francis pulled him back and gave him a rough punch on the shoulder that made him yell with pain and then Francis said, "I should have picked her up, you know that, don't you?" and Jackson said, "Yes," which in retrospect was the wrong answer. "You know I love you, tyke, don't you?" Francis said and Jackson said, "Yes," embarrassed for Francis, who never used words like "love." Then Jackson scrambled out of the car because he was late and he could hear the bell ringing. In the middle of the most boring maths lesson that had ever been taught in the history of the school, Jackson remembered it was Niamh's nineteenth birthday, and he was so shocked at the realization that he leaped up from his desk. The maths teacher said, "Where are you going, Brodie?" and Jackson sat down and muttered, "Nowhere, sir," because she was dead and she was never coming back and she was never going to be nineteen. Ever.

When he came home from school and walked in the house it felt as if there were something missing, but it was only after he'd changed out of his school uniform and made himself a sandwich that he went into the living room to watch television, and that was where he found Francis's body hanging from the fake chandelier light fitting that had once been Fidelma's pride and joy. His sister's killer was never found.

Chapter 21. Jackson