Deception aka Sanctum

Supposing, just for argument’s sake, that Susie was in love with Gow and was jealous of Do

But then what the hell do I know? Maybe Susie wasn’t acting rationally. Maybe she’d tried everything else she could possibly think of and was at the end of her tether. She made a lot of bad decisions around that time. She gave that interview, which was contrary to all of her interests. Still, it’s a leap from bad decisions to committing two murders.

If she was truly in love with Gow, I think it might break me.

chapter fifteen

I’VE BEEN OUT ON MY OWN FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS, AND THE break has done me good. I think having everyone here has been more of a strain than I’d like to admit. It’s hard falling asleep on the sofa. Almost as soon as I managed it, Trisha got up and clattered around the kitchen, banging plates together, trying to make herself useful. Mum heard it somehow and rushed downstairs, determined not to be last up, and before I knew what had happened, I was sitting at the breakfast table arbitrating their conversation.

After returning from mass this morning, Mum looked through the cupboards and found that the gravy powder was two years out of date. Evidently this was the start of the rot, the lack of Sunday gravy. I think she was more disgusted by this than my refusing to go to mass. She sent me out to get the makings of a Sunday roast. Yeni still wasn’t back from chapel, and for a terrifying moment I thought she might have run away.

The supermarket was quiet, and I nipped around in record time. As I was loading the bags into the car, I looked across the road to McFee’s and, through the condensation dripping down the window, thought I saw the back of Yeni’s yellow anorak at the table by the door. She could only have been hiding; the coffee’s terrible there.

She was sitting on her own, frowning hard and trying to read a Sunday tabloid, when I sat down opposite her. She glanced at my arm, politely sitting back to afford me a share of the tabletop before she realized it was me.

She pressed a hand to her chest. “ Lachlan,” she said, as she always says, as if her tongue were negotiating its way around a mouthful of oily marbles. “Jyou give me, mm, big scare.”

I smiled and said I was sorry. I nodded at the menu and asked if I could buy her an ice cream. She doesn’t have a lot of money and seemed quite pleased. Still, she tried to pay for the egg rolls she’d already had. I think she’s trying to make it clear that she is not available for good times. I didn’t know how to say “dream on, fat bird” in Spanish, so I smiled and let her pay and then ordered two Knickerbocker Glories and a pot of tea for two.

“My wife and I can’t thank you enough for staying during all of this,” I said.

She shook her head, but I could see she liked my mentioning Susie.

“My wife asked me specifically to tell you that she says thanks. You have been so good to Margie just when she needs extra care. Any other au pair would have left us. You are very kind.”

Yeni shook her head again and nodded and waved her head about some more. When she realized I’d finished, she smiled a beamer. “I like Margie very fine. She is good for to me.”

Her English is shocking. I suppose it’s my fault; I should talk to her more. We nodded and smiled at each other some more, and shrugged and were reduced to giving each other thumbs-up by the time the ice creams came. They looked great. The sun shone in through the window and lit up the strawberry sauce neon-clear. They looked gloriously indulgent.

Afterward we sat, drowsy with carbohydrates, sipping tea and ripping up paper napkins by wiping our sticky fingers on them. I read the papers while Yeni flicked through the pictures in the supplements. It was nice being with someone and not having to interact, just having the comfort of a bit of company. I noticed that she’d stopped smelling of yogurt, so she’s either sorted out her thrush problem or given up eating it. We didn’t talk about Trisha or my parents, but it was obvious why we were both hiding there. Afterward, when we could delay it no longer, I gave her a lift back to the house. It would be nice to have a pal.

Box 1 Document 3 Note of Circumstances (cont.)

SITUATION AT TIME OF OFFENSE

5. Mr. Gow was aged twenty-eight at the time of the indictment. He was married and living with his wife, Lara Orr, at 3582 Cumbernauld Avenue, Cumbernauld. They had no children.

6. The victims were all working as prostitutes in the Glasgow area.

6.1 Victim Mrs. Elizabeth MacCorronah, resident of Flat 3/1, 6 Ochil Place, Milton, Glasgow, had three children, all of whom were in local authority care at the time of the offense. She was a registered heroin addict and had attempted methadone-assisted withdrawal four times. She was married at the age of sixteen. Her husband, Davie MacCorronah, was killed in a house fire in 1991. He was also a registered addict. Mrs. MacCorronah was nineteen at the time of her murder.

6.2 Victim Karen Dempsey, resident of 46 Glen Tanar Street, Lambhill, Glasgow, was single and had a dependent mother. Although not a registered addict, she had a high level of both alcohol and codeine in her blood at postmortem. She was twenty-one years of age.

6.3 Victim Martine Pashtan, resident of Flat 1/1, 236 Saltmarket, Glasgow, was married and had a child aged four months. She lived with her husband of three years, Mr. Alvin Pashtan. She was twenty-four at the time of her death.

6.4 Alice Thomson, of Flat 16/3, 5 Calder Street, Polmadie, Glasgow, was thirty-three at the time of her murder. She had two children, aged thirteen and twelve, both living with their father, John Livingston, in East Kilbride.

6.5 Mary-A

7. Although Mr. Gow confessed to the murders, he was unwilling to talk about the commission of the offenses. DNA matches were made between Mr. Gow and the semen samples on the bodies.

PRISONER’S ACCOUNT OF OFFENSES

8. Gow volunteered a confession to the murders upon being stopped by two police officers for cruising in the Anderston area. He admitted to murdering the women, told police where he had left the bodies, and revealed details about the arrangement of the corpses. Forensic examination found traces of the women’s blood in his car. A preliminary DNA match was established between Mr. Gow and the semen samples left at the scene of the crimes. He has entered a guilty plea.

Subsequently, he refuses to discuss the offenses despite his guilty plea. On all other matters he is happy to talk. He is a pleasant, articulate man and presents himself well.

It’s now teatime and I’ve spent the best part of today up here hiding from the crossfire. Firstly there’s Trisha and all the nasty questions I’ve been avoiding: How did Susie look when I visited? What did she say? Is she well, not being mistreated, I hope? Does she have her own room? Is she having to empty her own slop bucket? How the hell am I supposed to know all this stuff? Trisha wants to know if she can come to visit Susie, but I said no, probably not. I’ve promised to ask Susie about her living conditions the next time I go, but I won’t. I’m not driving the forty minutes there and back with Trisha in the car and having her watch me being searched. Susie only gets four visits a month, anyway, and it may be wrong, but I want them for myself. Then Mum pipes up, standing up for me, telling Trisha to write to Susie if she wants to know these things, leave the boy alone, let my people go.