‘Is that you, Jack?’ Her voice was feeble and she coughed.
‘Yes.’
I hesitated at the door. ‘Come in,’ she urged.
‘I’ll make you some coffee.’
‘Thank you, Jack, thank you for saving my life.’
‘Christ, Mary, at one point I thought you’d gone. I thought I’d never see you again.’
Her voice cracked and she fought back a sob. ‘Me too.’
I sat on the side of her bed, both of us lost for words, as though what had happened was too much for us to contemplate and erased all our history. ‘I’ll make that coffee.’
She didn’t have the strength to answer and simply lay back in bed, her eyes slowly closing. She slept most of the day, waking only in the afternoon for a drink before sleeping again. By the following day she’d regained some strength and easily sat up in bed for coffee.
Satisfied that she was comfortable, I set about the task of removing the boards from the front windows. Within minutes, though, I felt exhausted again and for the first time realised how draining the rescue had been. Although I had regained some strength, I regretted having started, but was determined to keep going, so I took shutters back to the boat shed, storing them where they’d been kept before.
‘Is this where she died?’
Mary’s voice made me jump. Pale and shaky, she was standing in the door, just where I had been when I found Caroline.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘Where exactly?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Where did she…hang herself from?’
I pointed to the middle of the shed and the central beam where I’d found her hanging. For the briefest of moments I saw her again, saw those slowly swinging feet and their painted toenails. ‘There.’
Mary shuddered, stared at the spot for a minute and walked away. My instinct was to follow, but instead I finished the job of replacing the boards. It was an hour before I sought out Mary, who was sitting in the front room nibbling on some toast. Tired beyond belief, I lay on the sofa. ‘Mary, I need to know what you meant in the hospital.’
‘I know.’ She stared at the sea. ‘You broke my heart when you went with Caroline.’
‘I know.’
‘And do you know what hurt the most?’
‘No.’
‘You never saw me and told me to my face—you never took responsibility for what you did. You sent Caroline to do your dirty work and you just slid away.’
‘I turned my back, Mary, I know that—it was what my mother was trying to tell me.’ Mary looked quizzically at me, but there was no need to explain. Don’t turn your back, look beyond yourself, she had written: the message couldn’t have been clearer. ‘What did you mean in the hospital, about my being responsible for Caroline’s death?’
‘For so long it amazed me just how ignorant you were of the effect of what you did. You never used to be that way, but it was as though some cosmic switch was thrown in your head and you just forgot about other people. No one mattered but you and Caroline. You forgot that actions have consequences. You refused to take responsibility.’
‘But I didn’t kill Caroline.’ I sat with my head bowed, my chin almost on my chest. My words were barely audible.
She laughed and threw back her head. ‘You did, Jack. You mightn’t have dragged her out there and strung her up over that bloody beam, but you might just as well have. I have to take some blame—I accept that. That’s my penance.’ The first tears slid down her cheek. ‘Believe me, I still lie awake at night and want to scream at the dark.’
‘Why do you take any blame, Mary?’ For the first time I looked at her. I was shaking.
‘After you and Caroline came back from England and the arrangements were made for Caroline to meet Mum and Dad, they were so happy. I’d never seen them so happy. You have no idea just how much Caroline’s estrangement hurt them. It was bad enough for me, but they used to sit in silence night after night, unable to even broach the subject. They only talked about what she’d done as a child. That’s all they had, the past—the future was gone. And then suddenly, as though she’d risen from the dead, she was back. And then she failed to show up that night at the restaurant and all the shit started again. I hated her for that. It’s funny, but after all the stuff with you and going away and her letter, I never actually hated her, but I did that night because she’d given them hope and taken it away again. She had to be punished, Jack, she had to be punished for putting us through all that again.’ She was sobbing.
‘What did you do?’ Seeing her so distraught brought the first tears to my eyes.
‘The morning she died she’d rung me. She was so upset. You’d argued and she was so desperate she had to talk to someone, and there was no one but me.’
I remembered the broken phone from the morning of her death, the cord snaking across the floor.
‘There was my chance, so I told her about the letter, Jack. I told her about our letters. I told her how you’d apologised on the bottom of her vile letter from London and I told her how we carried on writing after that. It couldn’t have been worse. Shagging she could have understood—sex wasn’t that important—but she thought she had your entire mind, your wonderful bloody mind, but she didn’t. I had some of it still and she couldn’t bear that betrayal.’
‘You should have told me.’ I gripped my head in my hands.
‘I blamed you too much. If you hadn’t written those words at the end of her letter, none of this would have happened, but there was that little bit of kindness left in you—and it was enough to kill her.’
‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ I whispered in my grief.
‘You’ve repaid your debt now, Jack. There’s no need to be sorry.’
I shook my head. ‘No, there are much greater debts for me to pay, believe me.’
Detective Ryan,
I’m writing to tell you I wish to amend the statement I made about the unfortunate death of Jo Thompson. I lied. I know you never believed me, and you were right to be so suspicious. I’m available for re-interview at any time.
I was in the room with Jo and the Russian prostitute. Drugs were taken. Honestly, I can’t remember where they came from. I had enough in that room to knock out an elephant.
For too long I’ve avoided the truth of what I did. Well, no longer. I lied to you and to Jo’s family and you all deserve to know the truth.
At the Auckland High Court yesterday world-renowned New Zealand scientist Jack Mitchell was sentenced to one year’s supervision.
The 30-year-old founder of the Superforce theory pleaded guilty to a charge of perverting the course of justice. The charges arose following the death of 31-year-old Joanne Thompson at Auckland Hospital in March of this year. Thompson died from a cocaine overdose, taken at a celebrity party at the Hilton Hotel held for Mitchell following his successful national speaking tour.
When interviewed by police, Mitchell denied any involvement but later admitted his role in the cover-up. In mitigation, Mitchell’s counsel confirmed that the charges and court appearance had ended his lucrative contract with the Taikon Corporation and that the cancellation of Mitchell’s shows across the United States, together with the loss of other commercial deals, had left him bankrupt and out of work.
In sentencing Mitchell, Justice Simon Paine told him that he was one of the world’s most gifted men and it personally saddened him to see him before the court. However he accepted that Mitchell’s belated actions in admitting his role and his plea of guilty saved him from a custodial sentence.