The Killing House

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Hiya.’

  Turning, she saw Aisling Wallace in the doorway of the ladies, and felt herself flush. What to say to the woman? ‘Hello.’

  ‘You were listening?’

  Paula nodded.

  ‘It’s all true. As far as I know, she got away. I helped her.’

  ‘I know. Thank you for that. I know it wasn’t safe for you.’

  ‘It didn’t matter. I couldn’t let him kill her. But listen.’ She took a step closer. ‘I helped your mother. Now he has my sister – I want your help to get her back. You don’t know what he’s like.’

  ‘We’re doing all we can, I promise—’

  ‘No, you’re not. But I can help. I know him. I want you to do exactly what I say, and I also want to meet my niece.’ Her composed face broke into a smile. ‘My niece! I saw her on the news too. She looks just like Mairead. I need you to take me to her, and to my other brother, please.’

  ‘But Aisling—’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Take me to see my family and afterwards I’ll tell you everything I know about Paddy.’

  Margaret

  The ferry was freezing, exposed to all the harshness of the Irish Sea, which rocked beneath them like crushed black glass. All the same she wouldn’t stay in the car, couldn’t be anywhere with closed doors. She’d wrapped his scarf around her head and she could smell him, that tang of coarse wool and aftershave, a whiff of cigarettes. He only smoked when he was on edge, he’d told her. He said he’d been smoking non-stop since she went out of contact, lighting one off another in a frenzy. He said they’d looked everywhere, hauled people in for questioning, leaned on all their other sources. None of the neighbours appeared to have seen her bundled into the car – there was no police report, the RUC were stumbling around in the dark. The farmyard wasn’t somewhere they knew about, or they’d have been there in a flash.

  She tried to believe him. She wasn’t sure she did. But they’d come for her within five minutes of her making the call, roaring up in black Mercedes cars and taking the farmer aside to talk to him in quiet voices. She thought he’d been offered money. He hadn’t taken it, pushing them away as if affronted, and when she’d gone, once again bundled into the back of the car with a rug over her head, he’d watched her go with worried eyes. She’d tried to thank him but her mouth felt like it was stopped up with dirt. She didn’t even know his name. For a moment, as they were taking her away, she’d wanted to get out and run. Men taking her away, she didn’t know where. It wasn’t so very different.

  Then there was a car journey with her pressed to the floor, two silent men in suits driving, one with an earpiece. Her feet bare and cut, her clothes torn, and her hair hacked off. She didn’t know where they were until she heard the screech of birds and the roar of the sea. The ferry terminal, and finally Edward was there in the back of another car, smoking a cigarette down to his ashy fingers, his hat tipped over his face. She’d seen the way he looked at her. She knew she looked awful, and stank too, of the barn and sweat and fear. She’d never realised fear had a smell before.

  He’d said nothing to her until they’d driven onto the ferry, clanking over the ramp into its dark innards. Only when she felt it move off did she breathe again. Leaving Ireland. She’d never been out of it in her life before. Whatever documents had been presented were clearly enough to get them through without too many glances at the back seat, where she lay crouched. As soon as they were on and safe, she’d thrown the door open and run to the deck, gulping in the cold night air, drinking it down. Trying to shake off that barn, how close she’d been to being shot in the head. She’d seen it in his eyes, how he’d weighed her up. That man Sean. The one who’d saved her life. She would never know what had tipped it in her favour. Every breath seemed a bonus now. She could have been snuffed out, buried under that boggy soil. She held her trembling hands up to her face, white with cold. Was this real? Had she survived? She felt like a different person, not the same Margaret who’d sat down however many days ago to write a pathetic note to her daughter.

  Steps behind her, his light tread. ‘Come in now. They have people everywhere, on the boats even . . . it’s not safe.’

  She turned to him, this stranger with the careworn face that had somehow lodged itself in her heart. ‘What will happen now?’

  ‘We’ll get you away. Somewhere safe.’

  ‘They think I’m missing? They don’t know you found me?’ Meaning Paula and PJ. Meaning the family she was running from.

  ‘They can’t be told, Margaret. It’ll make them targets. At least not until it’s all over.’ Meaning the peace process, promised for so long, inching closer month by month.

  She shivered. ‘He said I could never tell them. Or I’d be killed, and them too. I’m supposed to be dead.’

  ‘That might be for the best. If you’re dead they can’t come after you.’

  ‘But . . .’ It meant letting her husband and daughter think she was gone for good, disappeared. It meant no answers. It meant years of looking. Could she do that to them? She looked at him helplessly.

  ‘We just have to get you away for now. Then we can think.’ His hand slid up her arm, rubbing it through the borrowed coat. ‘You’re freezing. Go back in the car.’

  ‘Will you be with me? In the safe place?’

  It seemed to her there was a slight hesitation. ‘We’ve both been compromised. We’ll have to figure something out. But you’ll be safe. I promise it.’

  Like he’d promised no one would ever know what she’d done. And yet they’d come to her house, into her kitchen, and taken her away. She’d almost died.

  She was shivering miserably. How had it come to this? The day he’d knocked on her door, courteous, with his English accent, asking about the soldier who’d died in her arms, suggesting there were ways she could help to make sure it didn’t happen again. It had seemed so harmless – a small thing she could do to fight against the darkness they all drowned in. Copy a letter here, slip a document into her bag there. A way to do some good, not just sit back and watch helplessly as blood fed on blood. But somehow it had ended up with her on the deck of this boat, its heaving making her queasy, running from her life and with his child in her belly. She hadn’t told him yet. Would he have come for her faster if he’d known? The thought was treacherous and she pushed it down. He was all she had now. She had to trust him. Her hands slid over her middle. ‘Edward . . .’

  He flinched at the use of his name. She didn’t even know if it was his real one, or just another ghost. ‘Let’s get inside. It’s not safe.’ He reached for her, then stepped back, frowning. ‘You’re hurt.’

  ‘No, I’m OK, just some cuts . . .’ She followed his gaze down, down her bare legs and her borrowed too-big shoes, onto the pitching deck of the ferry, where her blood was gleaming black as the sea.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Ciaran’s bruising was even worse than the day before, obscuring his features so much he no longer displayed the strong family resemblance all the Wallaces had. But he was conscious at least, although asleep, the swelling in his brain reduced.

  Aisling stared at him, her smooth brow furrowed. ‘He looks awful.’

  ‘He’ll be OK. It’s mostly superficial,’ said Corry.

  ‘God, I haven’t seen him in . . .’ She approached the bed, walking slowly. ‘Ciaran?’ she whispered. ‘It’s me.’

  A flicker around his eyes, a flash of blue. Under the bruising Paula saw the reaction. He wasn’t sure who she was at first. Perhaps he thought it was Mairead. Or someone else.

  ‘It’s me, Aisling.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he croaked. ‘Where . . . did you . . .’

  ‘I’m back.’ Tears were in her eyes now, turning them jewel-bright. ‘What did they do to you?’

  ‘I’ll . . . live.’

  Aisling turned to Paula and Corry. ‘Could you give us a wee minute, pleas
e?’

  Corry and Paula watched through the window, Corry tapping her fingers impatiently on her folded arms. ‘We’ll have to question her again soon. They must know something about the girl in the grave.’

  Paula sighed. ‘What if they do know, and they tell us who killed her? Can we still not arrest anyone, because of the Commission tip-off?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tozier’s already requested access to the interview tapes. Thorn in my side, that man. I just want a name at this point. Poor girl. It’s not right she’s lying in there unclaimed.’

  Footsteps behind them in the corridor, and there was Carly Jones again, her face twitching with emotion. It was strange – she looked so much like her mother and her aunt, and both of them were so hard to read. They’d been brought up to hide what they felt, maybe. ‘Is it true?’

  Corry nodded. ‘Yes. Your Aunt Aisling has come forward.’

  Carly peered through the window. ‘Oh! She looks . . . she looks like Mum.’

  Corry rubbed her shoulder sympathetically. ‘I know this is hard, Carly. But I think your aunt might know something that’ll help us find your mum. Why don’t you go in and meet her?’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Of course. On you go.’

  She went in, knocking shyly, and then Aisling was on her feet, and she and the girl stared at each other, and then Aisling strode across the room and took Carly in her arms, murmuring to her as the girl’s shoulders heaved.

  Corry turned away. ‘At least they’ve some family feeling left, then.’

  A while later, the door opened. Aisling was there, her face still composed and with no trace of tears. ‘OK. Ciaran and I have talked.’

  ‘So . . . you’re ready to continue the interview?’ Corry was alert.

  ‘I’m ready.’

  Back to the station. Interview room, the same DC accompanying, tape in the machine. Everything being done properly, especially with Declan Tozier hovering. Paula had seen him pass through the office earlier, closeting himself with Willis, no doubt to complain about the irregular way this case was proceeding. But she no longer cared. She’d long ago crossed a boundary, and now she just wanted answers.

  ‘So you told us Margaret Maguire was being held at your family farm, and you helped her escape, aided by Sean Conlon. Prior to this she was held and interrogated by your brother Paddy, along with Sean Conlon and also Fintan McCabe. Members of Paddy’s punishment squad.’ The tape had indicated the same, but Paula would never confirm that for herself. She didn’t want to know what could be heard on it.

  ‘That’s right.’ Aisling still looked composed, although she must be exhausted.

  ‘And what happened after? If Paddy believed you had killed and buried Margaret, how did it end up like this?’ Corry swept a hand over the crime scene photos. ‘Two people dead, Ciaran in prison, all of you scattered? You in hiding?’ Aisling had already told them she’d been living in a cottage in Kerry for years, off-grid for the most part, selling eggs and vegetables to make a small living, working in the kind of pubs where you got your pay in a brown envelope. It was still easy enough to live below the radar, in rural Ireland. ‘We know Fintan is the male body we found, but we still have no ID for the girl.’

  Aisling sighed. There were vague shadows under her piercing eyes. ‘Well. It all went wrong, didn’t it? It was because of Emer. We should have realised she’d go straight to Paddy and tell him everything. I thought she was too young to notice but that was a mistake.’

  ‘Emer?’ Corry’s head jerked. ‘I’m sorry, Aisling, who is that?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Aisling barked a short laugh. ‘That makes sense. I wondered why you were so sure it was me in that grave.’

  ‘You’re saying you know who the girl is?’

  ‘Of course. Sure wasn’t I there the day she was put in? It’s Emer.’

  ‘And Emer is . . .’

  ‘Our sister.’ She winced. ‘At least, that’s what we told everyone.’

  ‘Emer was our little sister,’ said Aisling. She was so calm again, telling the story as if she’d recited it a hundred times, although Paula was sure she’d never told anyone. It had been a secret eating away at the heart of the Wallace family. All families had secrets, of course. But not like this.

  ‘I was maybe four or five when she came home from hospital. I don’t remember that much, but we were told she was our sister. Mammy’s baby. Daddy was dead by then. Mammy hadn’t been out of the house much beforehand; I suppose she just wore a lot of clothes or something. Anyway, it happened all the time back then. I was too wee to notice what was going on, but Ciaran did. He said once that Emer was really our niece, not our sister. I asked him what he meant but he wouldn’t explain. Mammy heard and she locked him in the barn for two days.’

  Paula, listening outside again, shivered. The same barn they’d held her mother in?

  ‘Mammy was like that. She was . . . if you crossed her, she had no problem slapping you, or putting you out of the house in the cold, or giving you no dinner for days. We did what she said. Except for Paddy – she let Paddy run wild. I think she was afraid of him. When Daddy was alive he’d slap Paddy down – I saw him punch him in the face one time – but he died when I was three.’

  Corry was taking notes. ‘We didn’t find any record of a fifth child. Was that why? She wasn’t your mother’s?’

  ‘I don’t know if Mammy ever registered her. Too risky, I suppose, to show it was all a lie. That she wasn’t Mammy’s at all.’

  ‘And whose was she, Aisling?’ Corry’s voice was also calm. Both of them discussing this awful thing so calmly and quietly.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve worked it out by now. Anyway I don’t know for sure – nobody would ever tell me, I was only the wee one – but I remember everyone crying, Mairead leaving school, all kinds of shouting and screaming.’

  ‘I see. How old was Mairead when Emer was born?’

  ‘Thirteen or fourteen. It was a massive scandal, all hushed up. Then Mammy said Emer was our sister, and no one ever talked about it again.’

  ‘And the father was . . . ?’

  A silence of held breath. Aisling shrugged slightly. ‘I never knew for sure.’

  ‘Your best guess, then.’

  ‘I saw how our Paddy was about her. Mairead. No one else could have her. He scared away all her boyfriends – he shut one fella’s hand in the car door because he was five minutes late picking her up.’

  ‘You’re saying Emer might have been Paddy’s child, Aisling,’ Corry clarified, her tone never shifting, never hinting at the horror she must feel.

  ‘I don’t know. But . . . if you ever saw them together, you’d believe it.’

  Paula remembered Ciaran had said something similar. Our Mairead and Paddy. Maybe it’s not what you think.

  There was a brief silence, then Corry moved on. This was a murder inquiry, and that was the main point to keep hold of. ‘Tell me what happened the night Emer died. You were there, I take it.’

  Again, Aisling just nodded. She was so polished – the opposite of her sister, who’d sat raw and shaking in this same room. Aisling Wallace had somehow laminated herself against the world. ‘It was the night we let her go. Margaret.’ It was odd to hear this stranger say her mother’s name, like she’d known her. ‘Ciaran had already gone by then like I said – I don’t think he could stand to see what they were doing to Margaret. He doesn’t know anything about this. Mairead had gone earlier in the year as well, ran off one day without saying goodbye. I suppose she was pregnant again, with Carly. Margaret had got away, and we buried the sheep so we could say it was her, that she tried to escape and Sean shot her. Sean was so on edge – he thought Paddy would find out we’d lied, then he’d kill us. That he’d ask us to dig up the ground, show us her body. Or figure out the grave was too small to be a person. And Paddy was good at picking up when people were on edge.’


  As Aisling spoke, she described that night more than twenty years ago. The house filled with fear and suspicion. Their mammy stirring Irish stew, watching it all with her unfathomable eyes. Did she believe their lie, or did she know what they’d done? She’d already slapped Aisling across the face for letting Margaret escape. You’re too soft, girl. These children she’d raised. Ciaran fled, Mairead gone by then too. Sean and Aisling going over and over the story they’d rehearsed, praying they hadn’t left a chink in the tale. Margaret tried to run. The ropes broke, she got away. Sean shot her in the back of the head. She knew too much, they couldn’t risk it. Knew it was breaking protocol but what could you do. So they buried her.

  The noise they made woke Aisling’s little sister. Emer in the doorway in her nightie and dressing gown, watching it all. Go away to bed, Mammy kept saying, but she didn’t. All of them terrified in case the Army came to the farm and saw the fresh-dug grave. It wasn’t legal to bury livestock at home. They’d say a dog, maybe. The family dog had died. And in case Paddy asked questions, which was even more frightening than the Army.

  ‘Your mother knew?’ Corry asked.

  Aisling shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She must have known Paddy would kill me if he found out, so . . . maybe she went along with it. Or maybe she did believe us.’

  Then Emer, chiming in. ‘She loved that,’ Aisling said, her eyes darkening as if she was seeing it all again. ‘Everyone in the room staring at her, like she was a bomb about to go off. She said she knew the woman wasn’t buried there. That she’d got away. Sean and I had let her go. And she would tell Paddy as soon as he got in.’