The Killing House

by Claire McGowan

  Corry made a noise of annoyance in her throat. ‘Not confirmed. Things would be a hell of a lot easier if we knew who rang in the tip-off. We’re up to our eyes in missing IRA members and that Tozier fella’s commandeered the place. Kitchen stinks of green tea. Can you get in early tomorrow? Mairead’s flying over tonight.’

  ‘I’ll be there.’ She cast a last look back at Bob’s house, shuttered up as if no one lived there, and pulled off, heading for Pat’s, thanking some vague sense of God that she had a place to go to, with Maggie, with her dad, with Pat. Grateful for the family she had left.

  Margaret

  She couldn’t tell how long she’d been there now. Three days, maybe? She’d been slipping in and out of consciousness, tied to that chair. They hadn’t been cruel, exactly. They’d offered her food, freed her hands while she ate it, taken her to an old toilet in the corner of the barn, no lid or seat on it. It stank but she was glad to have it. The whole place stank, in fact, of boggy soil and septic tanks and the unmistakable smell of the cows that had lived in here until fairly recently. Bits of old straw still littered the cold floor, and she could see the remnants of cattle troughs. She’d had a lot of time to look around her prison, the broken skylight in the roof, the padlocked metal doors. She should be trying to think of how to escape. If she could get the ropes off it wouldn’t be that hard. But they were tight, and her legs had gone numb on the first day. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand now.

  On what might have been the third day the food was brought by a girl. She couldn’t have been much more than seventeen, pretty and dark, her hair long and straight down the sides of her face. She was wearing those tracksuit bottoms Paula always begged for, the ones with poppers on the side, and a white vest top. Margaret had never understood why the girls nowadays wanted to look like boys, hiding away in sports clothes. Maybe that was the point. To hide. The girl looked surprised as she came into the pale light, saw Margaret there. Likely they didn’t bring many women here. ‘Oh.’ Awkwardly, she held out the plate of spaghetti hoops and toast. ‘How do you . . . eh?’

  ‘They usually untie me.’ Her voice sounded hoarse and unfamiliar. They’d not been giving her much to drink. When she fell asleep she dreamed of water, of bathrooms and rivers and the vast sea, before waking herself up with a jerk, her mouth dry and neck stiff.

  The girl looked unsure, but she did it anyway, setting the plate of food down on the ground so she could undo the tight knots. It chinked against the concrete. Untying her was a struggle and it took a while, Margaret helping, thinking how strange it was, how totally ridiculous that anyone would tie her up, respectable mother and wife that she was. As the girl bent to help, she knew she could have kicked and run. Bashed the girl’s head against the ground and gone. Over the fields, away and home to her life, her daughter.

  What kind of person was she, to have these thoughts about a young girl? Anyway they’d catch her, hunt her down. She rubbed some feeling back into her arms, waiting for the pain to rush back along with the blood. ‘Thank you. What’s your name?’

  ‘I’m not meant to talk to you.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm now, can it? I’m not going anywhere.’

  The girl said nothing, hiding her face with her long dark hair, but her hands were gentle as she helped Margaret hold the plate.

  The food smelled good, cheap and unhealthy as it was, the kind of thing she’d only let Paula have now and again for a late tea on a weekend. Her hands were sore and she struggled to pick up the fork, spilling tomato sauce on the jeans and sweatshirt she’d been wearing for days now. She’d been trying to dress for going on the run, as if she knew how to do a thing like that. They stank, no doubt. She stank. ‘Do you live here?’

  ‘In the house.’ The girl jerked her head, as if Margaret knew the layout of where she was.

  ‘And are you . . .’ She took a guess, based on the family resemblance she’d spotted. ‘That’s your brother, maybe, who’s in charge?’

  The girl flinched.

  ‘He is?’

  ‘I’m not— I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘Do you know why they have me here? It was a bit of a shock. I was in my kitchen, just getting ready to put the dinner on.’ A lie, but a small one. It was what she would have been doing on any other day. ‘My wee girl comes in from school about then. You’ll have left school yourself, I’m sure.’

  The girl nodded reluctantly, and Margaret knew she’d judged the age right. Seventeen, eighteen or thereabouts. A child who’d been told she was now a grown-up. That might be useful. ‘I . . . They bring people here to ask questions. Our Paddy and his mates. Oh . . . shite.’ She bit her lip, realising she’d said the name, then angrily picked the plate up, her hair swishing.

  Margaret had a name, finally. Something to anchor herself on. Paddy. The terrifying man was Paddy.

  ‘I see. But I answered their questions, I told them everything. So will they let me go?’

  ‘I dunno. I’ll get in trouble if I talk to you.’ She sounded unsure, though. She wouldn’t have expected a mother to be in this situation. Just sharp, streetwise lads who’d played the wrong hand in a deadly poker game. That might be useful too. Margaret would use everything she could get.

  She had eaten all the food now, cramming it in so fast she’d burned her mouth. ‘Thank you. I needed that. It feels like days I’ve been in here. Any idea when I might get out?’ As if she’d been kept waiting at the doctor’s office.

  ‘I dunno. I dunno anything about it. He’s busy today so he said give you something to eat. I’ve to go back now.’ So Paddy was away. Were there other men outside, guarding the place? Margaret wondered where she was. Were these people her neighbours? Colleagues, schoolmates? That was the trouble with small towns. You couldn’t avoid anyone. ‘Is your brother nice?’

  The girl’s eyes shifted, as if someone might be listening. ‘Um . . . yeah.’

  ‘Right. He seems nice.’ A lie. He seemed like the kind of man who’d smile at you as he snapped your neck. ‘Thing is, I’m just someone’s mammy, and I’m so worried about my wee girl. Is your mammy here?’ What kind of woman would raise a killer? A man who’d tie an innocent person up to a chair in a barn?

  But then again, she wasn’t innocent, was she? Margaret pushed the thought away. She looked innocent. That was why they chose her in the first place, Edward said. She had to play on that as much as she could.

  The girl was putting the ropes back now, fumbling with them. ‘Aye, course. She’s in the house.’ In the house! What mother would let this happen in her own back garden? Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe Margaret could speak to her, and woman to woman they’d sort this whole mess out. Don’t be so stupid, Paddy, she’d tell her son, giving him a clip round the ear. Whatever are you playing at with this carry-on? Clean that barn out right now. Maybe they’d even say sorry for keeping her like this. But where was Edward? Why hadn’t he come for her, or the police, or anyone? Was this a test, to see what she could cope with on her own? She’d thought she was so smart, laying plans so the police couldn’t trace her when she ran, but now it just meant they might not even be looking. Or looking in the wrong place. ‘Could you tell her what’s going on, maybe? Tell her they’ve got a woman in here, someone’s mum? I’m sure it’s never normally women they bring, is it?’

  ‘No, but . . .’ The girl’s head turned at the sound of voices outside and she jumped, taking the plate and scurrying out. The door was locked behind her. But they’d made contact. Margaret had some hope. Surely she wouldn’t die out here, in this cold stinking barn, with a family living just metres away. Surely no decent person would let that happen. The whole idea was absurd.

  Chapter Seven

  Mairead Wallace, now Jones, had done her best to reinvent herself. A Liverpool accent overlaid the Ballyterrin one like the thick make-up on her face. She wore hoop earrings, pink tracksuit bottoms tucked into Uggs. But otherwi
se she hadn’t changed at all from the girl in the picture, and bore a strong resemblance to her brother Ciaran. The watchful blue eyes and thick black hair, glossy in spite of her forty-seven years, the still watchful face, the impression of much more going on behind it. She was sitting in the Family Room, on the edge of the sofa. The place they took the bereaved and the shocked. Nicer than the interview rooms with their bald lighting and scratched tables. Corry eased in the door. ‘Mrs Jones, thank you so much for coming over. You’d an OK flight?’

  ‘Not too bad.’ She was sizing them up, Corry in her crisp suit and Paula with her messy plait. No threat there, she’d be deducing, and then Corry would do most of the talking while Paula observed her, noticing the things she tried to hide. That was kind of their MO. Paula realised she’d missed it. It was months since she’d even interviewed anyone, interrogated anything other than a spreadsheet.

  ‘They’ve told you what’s happened?’ said Corry.

  ‘They said yis found bodies at the farm.’ Flat, straightforward. It didn’t seem like a shock to her.

  ‘That’s right. Two bodies. Did you know about them, Mairead?’

  ‘I’d nothing to do with it. But our Paddy and that lot – they used the barn out there. We knew that. After Daddy died he just ran wild.’

  ‘They used it to interrogate suspected informers, is that right?’

  ‘Aye. We paid them no heed. I didn’t want no part of it but . . . I knew why they did it.’

  Paula understood. Many people in Northern Ireland would have had that mentality. You didn’t like what was going on, and you certainly didn’t want blood on your own hands, but you didn’t exactly disapprove of killing those who’d betrayed your cause, and you weren’t about to stick your nose in it and maybe get shot for your troubles. Her mother had been unusual there. Willing to risk her life, and her family’s life, to try and end the war. Paula hadn’t worked out how she felt about that yet.

  ‘We were hoping you might be able to help us ID them. A young man, in his twenties most likely.’ They’d decided not to mention the name Fintan McCabe until it was confirmed, wanting to get Mairead’s unbiased response. ‘There’s also the body of a young girl or woman.’

  Her face stayed impassive, but Paula noticed her hands clench into fists. ‘You said.’

  ‘We’re not sure who she is. We think she was in her teens, dark hair . . .’ Corry paused, then said gently, ‘Mairead. We know you have a younger sister. Where is she?’

  ‘I . . . I haven’t seen any of them in years. We’re not in touch.’

  ‘So the place was just abandoned? Did you know your mother had gone into a home? The farm had to be sold to pay for her care.’

  Mairead swung her head away. ‘I didn’t want it anyway. It was only full of bad memories, rotten things. I went as soon as I could. The way our Paddy was . . . I was getting scared.’

  ‘And you never went home, never called or anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mammy said I was dead to her, as soon as I got on that ferry.’

  ‘But now your daughter Carly’s been looking for them, your family.’

  ‘Aye. Well, she should have known better. Too late now.’ There was bitterness there. Mairead had really not wanted to be found.

  ‘Who’s your daughter’s father, Mairead?’ said Corry easily. ‘You were married?’

  Mairead bit her lip. ‘Just some fella in Liverpool. We took up together for a time, but it didn’t work out.’

  ‘How old is Carly?’ Paula had caught a glimpse of the daughter in the waiting room, and she looked to be in her late teens, also wearing lots of make-up and jewellery.

  ‘Eh, she’s . . . nineteen.’ Mairead seemed reluctant to say it. ‘Can we leave her out of this, though? She doesn’t need to know what happened back then.’

  Paula wondered why Mairead had brought her daughter with her, if she wanted to keep her away from the investigation. Perhaps for moral support. Coming back could not have been easy, after all this time. It would have taken courage, for a young woman to leave on the ferry in the nineties, never to see her family again, and start a new life in a strange city. Paula knew a little bit about how that felt, and could only admire Mairead for it.

  Corry went on. ‘So let me get this straight. You left Ireland in 1993, yes? Sometime after that, the rest of the family scattered too. Your brother Ciaran went to jail ten years ago. He’s still there by the way, if you want to see him. Your other brother . . . where’s he?’

  ‘God knows. Slippery bastard’s probably hiding out somewhere. Our Paddy was always the wild one.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  Her face shut down again. ‘She was only young. I didn’t want to leave her there, with all Paddy’s mates around, but Mammy was – well, I had to go. Aisling was seventeen and Ciaran was nineteen. I haven’t heard a word from any of them since the day I left.’ So it could be Aisling Wallace in that grave. Paula wondered what was going on in Mairead’s head. The unspoken question seemed to hover in the air.

  ‘You never tried to find them on Facebook or anything like that?’

  ‘I hate that stuff. Raking up the past. It’s not safe. But try telling a wean that nowadays.’ The accent had slipped back just a little on the wean. Paula always found that too, when she’d been home a while. There was no way around it, she’d warmed to Mairead Wallace. She leaned forward, sympathetically.

  ‘We’re sorry to have to ask this, but we have two unidentified bodies in the morgue. The clothes . . . is there any way you could take a look and say if you recognise them? I know it must be hard for you.’ Paula had identified bodies herself more than once, knew too well the strange mixture of hope and dread.

  ‘You think the girl is my sister.’

  ‘We don’t know. But we have to look at that possibility.’

  Mairead visibly pulled herself together. ‘Aye, well, I owe her that much, at least. Where are . . . they?’

  ‘Just up at the hospital. We’ll take you there now.’

  Carly Jones was waiting outside the room when they came out, texting furiously on a phone with a pink cover. She had matching hoop earrings and the same long, shiny dark hair, just like her mother and aunt in that picture. She saw her mother’s face and frowned. ‘Mam! What’s wrong? What did they say to you?’ She glowered at Paula and Corry.

  Mairead hugged her tight and fierce, whispering something in her ear, and Paula felt it all the way down in her stomach. If she found her mother again – if she was alive – would they embrace like that? Or would they be strangers?

  ‘Take your time. No need to rush.’ The morgue attendants were always so respectful, even though to them, this must be an everyday occurrence. Stripping the dead, cleaning them, packing them away; that was simply their job. But for most people, standing on the other side of the glass, looking at a corpse that might be your loved one, was something you’d only have to do once. Except for Paula, who’d done it three times already. If her mother was alive, she wasn’t sure she could forgive her for that. Three corpses that she didn’t need to see. Three times expecting to see that well-loved face shrivelled and dead, the bones showing through. Three times hoping for answers, finding none, and not being sure if that was even a good thing or not.

  Mairead was only looking at the clothes, which was some small blessing, biting her lower lip again. It was dry, the lipstick flaking off. You always got dried-out on planes. ‘The jumper, that was our Aisling’s, I think. But the rest . . .’ The pendant. Socks with pig faces on, threadbare pink nightie from Dunnes. Everything plain, cheap. Nothing at all unusual or unique.

  ‘Yes?’ prompted Corry gently.

  ‘I don’t think Aisling would have worn stuff like that. She had sort of plain tastes, you know. Tomboyish.’ She kept staring, puzzled. ‘What’s that necklace thing?’

  Corry tapped on the glass and pointed, and the gloved a
nd masked attendant lifted the item closer. ‘It’s a dolphin pendant. You don’t recognise it?’

  Paula kept her head down, heart thudding, asking herself again: could it be her own? If so, how did it end up round the neck of a dead girl? Much more likely it was just one like it.

  ‘No. But I was gone a few months or so by that point . . . she could have bought it.’ Mairead’s fingers curled on the glass, leaving finger-marks. ‘How old did you say she was, this girl?’

  ‘We can’t be sure. Early to mid-teens, most likely.’

  For a long moment she just looked. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know if it’s her or not.’ Her voice thickened. Corry nodded to the attendant, who wheeled the tray away. Mairead had already looked at the man’s clothes and come up blank. Paula believed her – she hadn’t known those bodies were down there.

  ‘That’s OK, Mairead. We do appreciate you looking.’

  ‘What’ll happen now? To . . . whoever she is. The girl.’

  ‘We’ll go back to the missing persons’ databases, see if anyone contacts us now it’s been on the news. Someone must know who she is, after all. Will you be staying in town for a few days?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. I haven’t been back in years.’ She cast a look towards the waiting room, to where her daughter was. ‘Carly wants to see where I’m from. The farm, even.’

  ‘That’s a crime scene now, I’m afraid, but you’re welcome to go and look from the edges. It would be good if you could stay in town. We can arrange accommodation if needed.’

  Mairead nodded, her face a strange mixture of fear and openness. She said again, ‘I just haven’t been back in so long, you see.’

  Paula knew what she meant. If she could have, she would have warned her to be careful. However far you ran, and however long for, Ballyterrin had a way of sucking you back in.

  Chapter Eight