When You Wake up and Scream

The realisation that Conán would be seeing Naoise again at the trial didn’t actually hit him until he was being led into the courtroom. Inside, the place was packed with everyone who could get in. The relative of the victims took up a substantial amount of space, and there were witnesses – people who had known him, and Naoise, of course. She was making herself as invisible as possible, dreading seeing Conán as much as he didn’t want to see her, now the time had come around.

The public gallery was full and there was a select few from the press. The story was massive news – never before had anything like this been seen in a courtroom in Ireland, and everyone was itching to see what Conán Connolly was actually like. Sure, they had seen the mug shot, but it wasn’t like seeing the killer in person.

Naoise had developed a deep interest in her shoes when she suddenly heard the whispers break out, and she knew Conán was in the room. She could almost feel it, but she couldn’t look up. But she had to …

Naoise dragged her eyes up and felt her heart lurch when she saw him. She didn’t know what she felt, but it wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t hatred. Conán looked tiny, scared, vulnerable, tired … scared wasn’t the word. Absolutely petrified was more of the word. She had never seen him look so lost, or so ill. He had lost so much weight that she could practically see his cheekbones, and he looked as though he were trembling ever so slightly. She was possessed by the sudden urge to run to him and hug him.

He looked up, and instantly their eyes met. It couldn’t have been more than half a second, but the intensity of the gaze could be felt by all those who saw it. Heads swivelled to see who he was looking at, but by then the gaze had been broken, and Naoise was looking at her shoes again, biting her bottom lip, her eyes burning with tears. Her mother gently reached over and squeezed her knee reassuringly.

Conán was seated now, and he wasn’t restrained in any way. His lawyer was whispering something into his ear – as Naoise watched, he gave a small nod, and then a small shake of the head. He looked too scared to speak. She knew he must be able to feel the intensity of the hatred coming from the stares on his back, and she could almost imagine his skin prickling. There were a lot of whisperings around Naoise, and over everything else she heard the remark made several times: “But he looks so normal!”

Conán had developed an interest in the desk before him as deep as Naoise’s interest in her shoes by now, and he barely heard anything at all that was going on around him. He was consumed by that one spilt second of seeing Naoise. She had never looked so beautiful.

The trial itself lasted two weeks, with the most notable moments being Naoise’s evidence, and the cross-examination of Conán himself. Naoise couldn’t look at Conán as she sat in the witness box, but she could feel his eyes on her the whole time. As painful as it was, he couldn’t draw his eyes away from her, especially when she was speaking about their relationship with one another.

"We started off as friends," she said softly, speaking into a room that was as silent as a tomb. "But then, somewhere along the way .. we … well, we fell in love."

Conán’s eyes snapped to the desk. He dragged them up again.

"You loved him?"

"Yes."

"And he loved you back?"

"Yes. Well, he said he did. Perhaps he didn’t mean it? I thought I knew him well but I guess I didn’t."

"I do love you," Conán whispered, so quietly that only he heard.

"Do you think that’s why he didn’t kill you?"

"Perhaps. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me. Perhaps I was just lucky?"

"Do you think he could have been capable of killing you?"

"Yes. If he had to. I’d never seen him like that before."

"What was he like when you found him that day?"

"He was … strange. He just sounded different. It was like he wasn’t there. He knew I was behind him before he turned around, and he moved really quickly and grabbed me. I don’t know how he moved so quickly, perhaps I was just moving too slowly? He was upset that I’d found him. He told me that he hadn’t wanted me to find out, because that mean that he had to kill me."

"Did he seem in control of his actions?"

"At that moment, yes. He seemed to understand what he was doing, because he told me that he was going to have to kill me, and he promised me he would make it quick. He was obviously thinking about it, planning what he would do in his head. He must have been in control to be able to d that."

"Did you notice anything about his behaviour that was particularly abnormal? For instance, did he appear to be hearing or seeing anything that wasn’t there, anything like that at all?"

Naoise thought for a minute.

"No," she said, after a moment’s deliberation. "He was looking right at me the whole time, but he looked as though he was weighing up the debate. I tried to assure him that he didn’t have to kill me but he was adamant that it was the only way. He sure knew what he was doing, enough to think of the consequences ahead if he let me go. I told him that he could be saved if he stopped now, but he told me no one could save him. He apologised to me. He didn’t want to kill me but he knew he had to."

If the room had been silent when Naoise was speaking, then who knew what it was when Conán dragged himself up. He hated the feeling of hundreds of pairs of eyes on him and he made eye contact with nobody as he took his place. This was the first time that many would hear him speak, and they waited anxiously for what he had to say.

This is the last time, Conán assured himself, as he got ready to be questioned about everything he hated to talk about, and probably more. He couldn’t forget they were trying to see if he was insane as well, so he was prepared to have his brain picked apart. After this, you can lock this sorry chapter away and never think about it again. Don’t let them get to you, You don’t care, remember.

Conán subconsciously let that little part of his brain take over, and when he finally looked up, he didn’t disappoint. He met all of the expectations with his cold and expressionless expression and emotionless gaze. He wasn’t dreading talking about the killings, not even with the families of the victims in front of him. By now, the second week of the trial, they had heard it all already, but hearing it from their relative’s murderer would be different. It wasn’t his childhood that bothered him, either … it was –

"Tell us about your relationship with Miss. McCullough."

Conán’s eyes automatically flicked to her, and he instantly regretted it.

"She was my girlfriend," he said quietly. "Eventually."

"How did you meet her?"

"Just seen her one night. The night I killed Francis Cooke. I was going to kill her as well but something scared me off. I don’t know what. Anyway, I’m sure as Hell glad I didn’t."

"And you began to go around with her afterwards?"

"Yeah, though she didn’t like it at first. But Naoise’s a nice lass. She put up with me, because I guess she felt sorry for me."

"Do you love Naoise?"

The answer came without hesitation.

"Yes."

"And she loved you?"

"She used to."

"And that’s why you couldn’t kill her?"

"I imagine so."

"Can you think of any other reason?"

Conán shifted slightly.

"I guess I was just finished with killing," he said quietly. "I wanted to get caught at the end, yeah? So I let her go. But I think if I didn’t love her, I would have made myself kill her."

"Oh, Conán," Naoise whispered, and her mother squeezed her hand tightly.

"Did you consciously make the decision not to kill her?"

"I don’t know," Conán frowned. "I just couldn’t do it, that’s all I know. One minute I was strangling her and then the next I couldn’t do it anymore. I just walked away, I went and sat on the sofa and watched TV. That was the only thing I could think to do. I … I don’t know what it was, all right? Perhaps it was love? Perhaps I just couldn’t be bothered anymore? I knew deep down that it was all over, the Garda were onto me and I knew I was going to make a mistake soon."

"How did you know this?"

"I was getting reckless, you know? Usually I would space the killings out, over weeks, maybe months. But not this time. Five, five in a week. There were body parts everywhere and I’d crashed my car so I couldn’t dispose of the pieces. That’s when I knew it was over – when I crashed my car. I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to hide evidence anymore and I knew that I would be caught eventually with all the evidence they needed, because I was careless. I was grabbing people off the street and I didn’t even check to see if I’d been spotted. I knew it was over, it was just a matter of when it would be over."

Conán was fed up of trying to explain something that he knew even he would never understand. How do you begin to start to understand something that he had done? He couldn’t understand why he had done it, he only had vague ideas.

There was a lot of evidence to get through. Detective McAfee spoke about his time working with the young killer, and about his frequent mood changes. Several psychologists spoke about him, including Dr. Carroll. Before Conán could stop himself he had let out a soft snigger, earning him a sharp elbow jab in the side from his lawyer. He changed the snigger to clearing his throat and resumed looking at the desk innocently. Conán had to endure nearly a whole day of them speaking about his childhood, and he only realised how hard he had been clenching his fists at the end of the day, when he saw that the nail marks in his palms had drawn blood. He was getting frustrated – he knew he was as guilty as sin and he just wanted the messing around to be over and done with, he just wanted to hear what was to become of him. Part of him wished that he really was insane, and he was delusional and it hadn’t been him who had committed the murders in the first place. It would be someone else and he could forget it ever happened. He knew that this thought took the prize for wishful thinking, however, and that there was no chance of that at all. He couldn’t wait for the trial to be over with, so he could take himself off somewhere and try his best to sort himself out.

Conán thought that he would be relieved when everything was finally settled, but he couldn’t have prepared himself for what was to come. If there was anyone who had terrified in the room, it was Naoise. After the entire two weeks being taken up with evidence and testimonies, they were finally back waiting on the jury’s verdict, and Naoise had been chewing her thumb constantly for the past hour. It was bleeding by the nail now, but it didn’t matter how many time either Patricia or Mairtin McCullough batted their daughter’s hand away from her mouth, she would always find herself nibbling again five seconds later.

She watched Conán when they brought him back out again. He was still pale and skinny, looking thoroughly unwell, but his facial expression was calm considering today was going to be the day he discovered what was to become of him for the rest of his life. Naoise began to chew her bottom lip instead. His dark eyes were darting around quickly, and she could detect a slight nervousness in them. Suddenly he found her own eyes again, and this time they watched one another for a fair amount of time. She didn’t want to drag her eyes away. She wanted him to know that she could at least stand to look at him, even if she didn’t know whether she could ever forgive him for what he had done. Still, as she looked at him, all she could remember were the good times, all of the drunken times, all of the times they had laughed like schoolchildren and gotten disapproving looks from the more mature in society, every time Conán had said something so insanely witty he had caused Naoise to burst out laughing weeks later in a totally irrelevant university lecture. She managed a small smile. He didn’t return it, but his eyes smiled. She knew that much. She didn’t know if he was thinking along the same lines as her, but she knew he was smiling in his own way.

They only broke eye contact when he sat down, now with his back to her. Naoise sighed and looked at her shoes again.

Conán was surprised to find that, at the moment, he didn’t feel anything about what was to come. He couldn’t have really cared less. He was perfectly calm, feeling as though he were sitting at a bus stop, not waiting to find out what was going to come of all this. Eventually, the time came to find out, and he watched impassively as the judge was handed the verdict. Conán sighed. Perhaps, deep down, he knew what the verdict was going to be all ready, as he wasn’t surprised at the outcome.