The Killing Doll Read Online Free PDF Page A

powdered milk in the room and three large boxes of teabags and some noodles and curry stuff you added hot water to to make a meal but he had left nothing else of his, not even any of his clothes. Diarmit wished he would come back because he was growing more and more frightened of being alone. He knew no one in the house and it was several days since he had spoken a word to anyone or anyone had spoken to him. He sat in the window and drank his tea, watching the Dalmatian and the collie, watching the chestnut leaves falling on to the wet green grass.
    He was twenty-four, the youngest of twelve children. When he was nine in County Armagh, his mother had been killed by a bomb intended for a Member of Parliament whose house she cleaned. Diarmit saw the bomb go off and he saw what happened to his mother, though he was not injured, or not apparently injured, himself. His father, long before, had gone to America “to see what it was like,” had seen and never come back. Diarmit’s brothers and sisters were scattered about the British Isles. First he went to his eldest sister in Dublin but she had seven children of her own and an extra one was too much for her, so he was passed on to divide his time between his two sisters in Liverpool.
    He had a brother in Belfast, a butcher with his own shop, the most successful and well-to-do of the Bawnes. When he was sixteen, Diarmit was sent back to Belfast to live with his brother and learn his trade. He was there two years. Then the whole street, including the shop, was bombed one day and the opposite side reduced to rubble. Neither the butcher nor Diarmit was hurt but Diarmit vanished and was found some days later, wandering in the countryside twenty miles away, having lost the power of speech and his memory.
    After that he spent nearly a year in a mental hospital, though he was never certified. He came out, returned to Liverpool and resumed the existence of moving from one sister to the other. Neither wanted him. Family conferences were held to discuss the big question of what was to be done with Diarmit, what permanent job could be got for him, where was he permanently to live. The army was considered as a possibility, work on the land, bus driving, security officer, traffic warden. His mental history was against him; there was that black-out, that year in the hospital, that loss of speech that had afflicted him on several later occasions. He lived more or less always on the dole. Sometimes he had doubts as to whether he actually existed at all, and these were particularly strong when his speech failed him or when his sisters, exasperated, ignored his presence or their children acted as if any room in which he was was an empty room.
    Conal Moore was his sister Mary’s brother-in-law. He lived in London and worked for Budgen’s on the delicatessen counter. Everybody in the family and everybody connected with the family was rooting for something for Diarmit, just to get him off Mary’s back, so it was welcome news to hear from Conal, though it was no great surprise. Conal said he could get Diarmit a job on the butchery counter, after all that was Diarmit’s line, and if he liked to come down he could share his place for a bit till he found somewhere.
    Diarmit had come to Mount Pleasant Gardens and found a note waiting for him and the key to the room. The note and the key were on the table in the downstairs hall where all the tenants’ correspondence was put. Diarmit could read his own name on the note but nothing else. He was better with print, for instance he could make out a lot of what was in a newspaper, but handwriting defeated him. He had let himself into the room and ever since then he had been waiting for Conal to come back and he had been wondering what was in the note.
    The note was in his pocket. He carried it about with him. He had a sister living in London. Her name was Kathleen, she was married and she lived in Kilburn. Every day Diarmit meant to go and see Kathleen so