But she stands by her husband at the bottom of the stairs lined with angry policemen. She puts her foot on the first step and thinks of the Via Crucis. She takes a second step and berates herself for the arrogance of supposing this an emulation. She takes a third and tries to offer up whatever is about to happen. She tries to pray but feels herself beset by enemies, forgotten by God, in the valley of death.
The policemen on the stairs shrink away from Brigit and Samuel as they pass. She sees their eyes widen, drinking in the sight but somehow vacant, as if they are already remembering this, telling someone else the story of seeing this: that couple, with a son like that. She has been laughed at and insulted and shunned. Once, down in Coventry, spat at by a policeman because of her son. But it has never been as hostile as this. Brigit knows, then. The answer to my prayers may require a miracle.
They are led down a passageway to a grey metal door. DS Brown says that they are about to meet Peter, that he has something important to tell them.
Brown knocks carefully and identifies himself. The door opens and they walk into a green-tiled room with a sharp overhanging light.
There are ten or fifteen policemen inside, standing around the walls, staring solemnly at Brigit and Samuel as they shuffle in. William Muncie is there. He has searched Brigit’s house many times over the past twelve years. He takes milk and three sugars. He drops his eyes at the sight of her. She always feels that Mr Muncie wants to cry when she catches his eye.
The door is shut behind them.
Peter is sitting in the middle of the room on a low chair. His feet are planted firmly on the floor, as if to resist more shoves. His hands are behind the chair, cuffed, she thinks. Usually immaculate, Peter’s hair is messy and he has no jacket or tie on. His neck is bruised, the shirt undone at the neck. It looks as if someone has yanked him by the shoulder. It looks as if they have been hitting him. Not on the face but on the body. He is the only person in the room who is sweating.
He looks up, sees her and sighs. His head flops on his chest. She can see a bruise creeping up from under his collar.
DI Robert McNeill steps out of the mob of cops. She nods a hello.
‘Come on now, Peter,’ says McNeill, ‘you asked to see your parents. Don’t you have something to tell them?’
Peter keeps his eyes down and shakes his head like a drunk.
McNeill is exasperated. ‘You said you wanted to talk to your parents. We’ve gone to a lot of trouble to bring them here.’
Brigit steps forward like St Veronica. ‘Son? Are you all right, son?’
Peter flinches from her. His jaw is tight.
NcNeill is annoyed. ‘For goodness’ sake–look, it’s the middle of the night. We’ve got them both up out of their beds because you asked to see them.’
Peter lifts a hand and runs his fingers through his hair. She sees now that he isn’t handcuffed to the chair. He was assuming a pose, like in a film. Brigit steps back into the crowd. She isn’t St Veronica. She is a fool who falls for his lies every time.
‘Let my father go,’ says Peter, full of grand biblical touches.
McNeill is livid. He has realised it was all a trick too. He says, ‘Peter, we’ve been through this already. I’ve told you it’s the Fiscal who decides that. Your daddy will have to appear before the court in the morning.’
But Peter doesn’t even listen to the explanation. He blinks and nods, wiping the setback from his mind. Brigit has seen him do that before, many times. Then Peter looks at his father and nods beneficently, as if they have agreed to let him go on Peter’s say-so. But they haven’t agreed to let him go.
She says, ‘Look, Peter, what is it you want to talk to us about?’
But Brigit knows what it is. He looks at her and sees that she knows. Silently, Brigit starts to cry.
He slumps, puts his elbows on his knees and mutters at the floor, ‘I’ve never found it easy to talk to you…’
Brigit falls to her knees in front of him. She holds his hand to her forehead. ‘I know. I know there are things you find hard to say to us.’
Her tears drop onto the back of his hand.
Peter whispers, ‘I don’t know why I do these terrible things.’
‘Oh, Peter.’
She holds his hands and kisses them. She kisses them so that she doesn’t have to look up at him. Then she does. He is looking at her and then at his father. His eyes are dry but his face is the mask of a man who is crying. But his eyes are dry.
‘I’m going to help the police solve some mysteries that have been happening in Lanarkshire recently.’
He directs everything else he says to his father but she doesn’t hear it because she knows. Her son is not coming back. He’s never coming home again. She’s grateful and ashamed of her gratitude in equal measure. The answer to my prayers may require a miracle. A miracle has been granted but not for Peter. She realises that Peter wasn’t the lost person. He’s not coming home ever again.
The next day the newspapers report that a man and a woman were driven away from Hamilton Police Station at three thirty in the morning in the back of a police car. The woman held her face in her hands and seemed to be crying uncontrollably.
Standing in the dock now, with all the eyes of the world boring into her, Brigit relates the cold facts of who was where and when. She only adds one bit of illuminating dialogue:
‘You said that you didn’t know what made you do these terrible things.’
Peter freezes, one hand on his notes. ‘Are you sure?’
Yes, she says, she is.
He nods as if he understands and forgives her mistake. ‘Is it possible that you misheard me say that?’
No, she doesn’t think so.
He half smiles. ‘Yes, I see. But the room was full of policeman, was it not?’
She agrees it was.
He sighs indulgently, giving her an out. ‘It was the middle of the night, you were in a room full of policemen: is it not possible that you heard me say something like that, or were told I’d said that or that Brown told you I’d said it before you arrived or something?’
‘No, Peter,’ she says, her voice unwavering, ‘I heard you say that.’
No one else ever mentions this comment. Is Brigit misremembering? Is she more honest than anyone else or more emotionally engaged with the comment? Or is she lying, breaking her sworn oath to God to tell the truth, committing a terrible sin that may hang her son and save the world from more carnage?
Later, M.G. Gillies gets up to cross-examine her. He knows what the jury are thinking about.
‘Just to be clear, Mrs Manuel: earlier you said you heard Peter say he didn’t know why he did these terrible things?’
‘Yes. I did say that.’ Brigit is very sure. ‘Peter told me he didn’t know what made him do these terrible things. That’s what he said.’
‘Did you hear him talk about the charges against him? The charges on the warrant?’
‘No. But at some point he said, “There is no hope for me”.’