Thirteen Twenty

Thirteen-Twenty

 

It should have been an easy case.  It was simple and clear cut, somebody feeling hard done to over shadows of the past, and grievances against them, both real and imagined. The background was simple but it didn’t make the action any less horrific. Her patient had opened fire on a class of seven year-olds coming out of church after receiving their First Holy Communion. The press described it as a bloodbath, with nine dead and seventeen injured— mainly parents— running into the rain of bullets to cover their children. Five of the children were dead. The priest, coming out of church at the rear of the procession, was unharmed.

 

It was down to Laura Chalker to get to the bottom of the question of capacity. Was the perpetrator of sound mind when she gunned down those babies? Or did she lack the capacity to have full understanding of her actions and their consequences? If Laura concluded with diminished responsibility, there would be no trial and her patient would be led to a secure unit, nice and quietly. There would be the possibility of rehabilitation—one day, if she got better.

 

Society wanted blood, at the very least they wanted to see the artist’s impressions of the trial. This could extend to months of media drenching and salacious titbits. The press called it, ‘The White Lace Massacre,’ and wanted to drag it out and wring every ounce of emotion from it to boost sales of their papers. The white wigs were baying for their day in court, this one was the stuff that big salaries and prestige were made of. The people—many of them calling for the return of the death sentence—wanted revenge.

 

It was down to Laura to decide if the eleven second shooting was the work of a religious zealot, a crazed maniac or just somebody who felt that mummy didn’t love her.

 

‘Why did you do it, Jane?’

 

‘To save them.’

 

‘To save them from what?’

 

‘Disappointment.’

 

‘You know the press are calling you a religious zealot, how would you answer that?’

 

‘I piss on religion. What did it ever do for me? I was dragged to mass every Sunday morning, whether I wanted to go or not, forced into stupid goddamned dresses with flowers on them. And for what? For what eh? Did it make my mother happy? Did it make her love me?’

 

‘Do you blame religion for your perceived lack of maternal love?’

 

‘Why are you talking at me like a textbook? No, I don’t blame God, or the church, or my dad, or even me— I blame her.  I remember my communion dress, all that lace. The veil covered my face like a curtain, protecting me from the eyes. As we walked down the aisle to give ourselves to God, that’s all I saw, rows and rows of eyes.  I had little red shoes, with the T cross buckle, and white ankle socks. She said I was a bride of Christ—and then she said sorry.’

 

‘Sorry for what?’

 

‘Leaving me. How dumb was that, saying sorry for something you haven’t even done yet? She didn’t have to do it, nobody made her leave me.  She kissed me on the cheek, told me she was proud of me and walked out of my life forever.  It was there, outside the church, she said she was sorry and got into a black car—and there was the man beside her— the one with the hat. I remember that was the only time I ever saw my dad cry. Even when they came and took me away because he wasn’t coping, he just sat at the Formica table, with his chipped coffee mug and shook his head. He didn’t even look up.’

 

‘So to be absolutely clear on this point, Jane, the shooting was nothing to do with religion?’

 

‘Not a thing, I could just have easily gone for employees of Clark’s shoe shops, or men wearing tweed trilbies.  It was her fault—not God’s.’

 

‘But she came back. You were patching things up. Tell me what went wrong, Jane.’

 

‘She let me down, again.’

 

‘As simple as that?’

 

‘Yes.’

 

The woman was cold, her answers spat without thought. Responses given to the same questions that she’d been asked a hundred times. Laura wanted to rattle her.  She opened the file on her desk and took out full colour A-4 photographs of the crime scene.  She slid them across to Jane Rutherford.  Jane glanced at them then turned her head way.

 

‘Look at them.’

 

‘No, thank you, they aren’t to my taste. ‘

 

‘This is the result of your actions, look at them.’

 

Laura shouted at her patient, trying to get a rise. Jane snorted in derision but glanced at the photographs in front of her.

 

‘Look at the children, Jane, you’re a mother yourself, an excellent one if these reports are anything to go by. What does seeing these poor bloodied children do to you inside, Jane? One of the dead was your granddaughter’s best friend.’

 

‘I find this tiresome and your methods crude.’ She looked at the pictures in turn, picked the worst of them up and looked at it closely.  ‘They’re actually very good, you know? Forget selling them to the media, the photographer should approach a gallery and open an exhibition. Look at this child’s arm, here, the way it’s falling, but still clutching the candle. He’s caught the motion perfectly. Despite the downward movement and uplift of wind beneath it, the flame’s still lit. He’s captured the exact moment before the flame is extinguished—very metaphoric, don’t you think? I like the way the blood splatter here, looks like a spray of rose petals against the white lace. The child is still smiling—I think that’s a smile, don’t you?’

 

‘You have the perfect life? That’s what you said, during police interview—so why?’

 

‘Do you know, it was three days before I was asked why? They asked me how, they wanted to know about the gun, who was involved, the where and what’s. But nobody ever bothered to ask me why. Don’t you think that’s odd? I do.  My husband was innocent, of course, he regrets taking me shooting with him, poor love. I told him it was a waste of his time teaching me and that I’d never take to it. I can’t see me ever being welcome at the club, or getting hold of a gun again, can you Miss Chalker? So you see, it was one bright flash and then a complete waste of time. Why.’

 

‘Yes Why? You were angry with your mum, she abandoned you as a child, and then, when you’d tracked her down and arranged to meet, she was late. So you went home, stayed there for almost twenty-four hours and then you got your husband’s sub-machine gun and mowed down a church full of innocent people—why? Why not find your mother and kill her there and then, surely that would make more logical sense. ’

‘Not a church full dear, if you’re going to indulge in this tiresome grilling, do get your facts right.  It was outside the church.  Why? I honestly don’t know. I’ve thought about it a lot and I can’t come up with an answer. I don’t know why, isn’t that odd?’

 

‘How did you feel at the time?’

 

‘Oh angry dear, undeniably angry, there’s no doubt about that.  But not at the children.’

 

‘Did you know about the communion service prior to going there?’

‘Oh yes.  I recalled my eldest daughter saying that my granddaughter’s best friend was taking her communion there today at one.  I figured they’d be out by about one twenty.  It was premeditated—yes, definitely premeditated, you’d better write that down on your form dear, it might be important later. I tracked him down you know, the man in the tweed trilby. He was my first. I laughed when I found him so easily. My mother was much more difficult to find, with all those name changes and moving to America. I lost the trail in 1982 and from there she just vanished. Do you know how long they lasted after he stole her away from us? They were together less than a year. I found two more after him. I waited for years. I waited for the knock at the door.  The first one was rage, there as a lot of blood. My car was covered in it, but nobody ever suspected. After him, I suppose the rage was diluted, killing the other two was just because they had her—and I didn’t. That’s all.  And then there was the woman, some friend she took up with.  They went line-dancing together— I don’t mind a bit of dancing. But that was all before America.’

 

‘How did you find her?’

 

‘Research, I never gave up dear, eventually it was Facebook. Social Media, we’re all just numbers in a box, nobody can ever really be anonymous. And it’s not as if she was even trying to hide. There with her sun hats and her cats. I never thought somebody like her would go abroad. She couldn’t even be at the station on time. It should have been important. I should have been important.  Do you know why she was late? Because she was stuck in traffic. That’s how small and ordinary it was. One twenty, one-twenty, one-twenty, she should have been there.’

 

‘It was the time wasn’t it? That’s the relevance. Your mum was supposed to meet you from the 13; 20 train. How did you feel when you got off and she wasn’t there?’

 

Jane was fidgeting, she was anxious, the interview was revealing her and breaking through the calm mask. Laura was getting to her. Jane looked into the distance, recalling the moment she stepped from the train.

 

‘It was dark on the platform, and packed with people, no manners, pushing and shoving their way along.  Hugging and kissing, noise and rucksacks, so many holdalls and a dog, maybe two, small yappy dogs.  And I looked for her.  I had the photo but maybe I wouldn’t recognise her.  I approached a woman— it wasn’t her. I was confused.  Where was she? I went to the street to see if she was there. “Ticket Madam,” I wanted to stab him, I looked in my pocket from something to use, but there was only the ticket. And then I was outside. People smoking, taxi’s and sunlight, strong sunlight.  I squinted looking at people. But she wasn’t there at one twenty. She let me down again.’

 

‘If she had been there on time, how to you think the reconciliation would have gone?’

Her voice was calm but reading her body language, Laura could see that Jane was agitated. She looked at the clock every few seconds as the session progressed. She was moving more, small signs of agitation crossed her features. Laura picked up on them all and pushed her to reveal more. Jane was covering her body language with the same mask of cold indifference and Laura wanted to break it down.

 

‘Don’t be naïve dear, there could only ever be one outcome. It was going to go my way.’

 

‘Did you intend to kill your mother?’

 

‘Why else would I have been there? Of course I was. It’s hot in here, may I have a glass of water please?’

 

Laura pressed the intercom and leaned forward to speak into it when Jane struck. It was one second’s lapse of concentration. She’d taken her eye of the ball and Jane seized her chance.  The fifty year-old grandmother leapt with surprising speed across the desk and grabbed Laura’s hair. She used the force of movement and the momentum of her body to slam Laura’s face into the desk.  At the same moment pain spread across her face, Laura felt a sharp jolt in the middle of her back.

 

And then there was nothing—the pain dissolved into nothingness.

 

Security were there and had Jane restrained within ten seconds of her moving from her seat.  Ten second was all it took for Jane to get over the desk, ram Laura’s face into it and stab her in the back with a hidden blade.

 

Laura Chalker was paralysed and would never walk again.  As she was lying on the cold tiled floor. One of the paramedics asked a guard, how long it had been.  Time was important, he said.

 

‘Er, about ten minutes now. She’s been conscious throughout and her PB is stable.’

‘So what time would you say the stabbing occurred?’

 

The guarded looked at the same clock that Jane had been watching.  ‘Well I couldn’t say exactly, sometime around…’

 ‘One Twenty.’ Laura wheezed. 'No trial.'