Lying in Wait(87)

‘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.