Little Bird: a serial killer thriller

by Sharon Dempsey

  The side roads were jammed with traffic. People trying to make their way home after doing a day’s work. Anna kept to the main route but found the car engulfed by rioters and on lookers. She edged the car, inch-by-inch, slowly through the crowd, as hands slammed on to the car, and abuse spat out of angry mouths. Hate and violence unleashed like a raging epidemic. She turned into the street to her left, glad to have got out of the worst of it and turned her lights off. She looked around and saw that she had pulled into one of the back streets of red-bricked terraced houses. Youths were running past the top of the street brandishing any weapons they could get their hands on – metal pipes, pieces of masonry and bottles, some of which were filled with sloshing petrol, corked with a rag to catch the flame at the opportune moment.

  Two frightened faces peered out from behind a curtain window. Anyone with any sense would be hiding out until the worst of it died down, but several residents were standing in their postage stamp sized front gardens, as if this was a spectacle not to be missed. One of them was drinking a can of Budweiser. She thought it odd that he seemed to be looking on as if this was entertainment.

  Anna had experienced street violence before. She was used to unrest, but the burly rugby players littering the city streets after a match in the Cardiff Arms Park or the newer Millennium stadium seemed like harmless rogues compared to this lot.

  Suddenly, she heard a roar of, ‘PSNI scum.’ Some of them were so obviously kids. They should be safe at home, doing homework and playing video games, she thought. They looked barely thirteen as they ran wild with their misplaced sense of vengeance. Why did everyone blame the police for everything in this town? Anna wondered.

  She watched as hooded figures with scarves tied round their lower faces, to prevent being caught on camera, gathered in a huddle at the street corner, apparently planning their next move. A police Land Rover took position on the road opposite and Anna watched as the youths roared back into life, bottles and bricks in hand ready to cause trouble. A firework shot up into the police barricade to shouts and whistles. It was like sport to them. Anything to bate the police, and give them an excuse to interact on an aggressive level.

  The next thing Anna knew her car was surrounded. They were pushing it from side to side, causing it to rock back and forth. She revved up the engine, glad she had the sense to lock the doors in advance. Faces with rubber Halloween masks pressed up against the windows, some comical and others grotesque. As she managed to get the car going she heard a deafening crack. They had smashed in the back window. Within seconds she was being pulled from behind, dragged through the broken window. This is it she thought; fuck they are going to kill me. She tried to reach for her Glock but her hands were dragged behind her. She had to get away. She had to fight back.

  Thrashing and kicking, she fought them but there were too many, and they were stronger than her. Hands grabbed at her clothes and her hair, yanking her through the back of the car. Hands tore at her, dragging her through the broken back window and she felt her shoulder pop in a scream of lightning bolt pain, rendering her dizzy and sickened. Bile rose up into her throat, acidic and viscous, burning as she swallowed it back down her gullet.

  She thought of the two British soldiers in the late eighties, taken from their car in the midst of a funeral cortège, stripped and mutilated before being murdered. Wrong place, wrong time and wrong nationality. What was she thinking driving into this? Had she been trying to prove she didn’t need to be nannied to do her job? How bloody wrong she was.

  ‘Get her identity card out, she’s an undercover cop, so she is.’

  The noise was deafening. Somewhere far off she could hear a siren. A whoosh of flames. A roar of chanting, indecipherable words. A blow to the front of her head was the last thing Anna felt. Cold and sudden it smashed down on her skull. And then, velvet blackness.

  The heat made her think of Camille. The fevers that had raged for days, though it felt like months, were impossible to control. Anna had sponged her down with cooled water, gave her slivers of ice which melted immediately on touching her lips, and kept two fans whirring, constantly, at each side of the bed. The morphine never seemed to do enough.

  Her mother would alternate, from being lucid and clear in her desire for it all to be over with, to raging in a haze of madness. Using language Anna had never heard uttered from her mother’s lips. Asking for her own mother, and crying out that the cat was scratching at her feet, that insects were eating at her, that the fire had burned down and where was the coal? All ranting lunacy, yet so apparently painfully real to Camille. Then begging forgiveness for being a burden, for not coping with the pain. Both versions of her mother terrified Anna.

  Usually Camille was such a contained, controlled person, that this loss of all sense of decorum made Anna feel her mother had only ever presented a shadow of herself. It was as if she was always on her best behaviour, should anyone doubt her ability to be the perfect mother, for fear they would snatch Anna away.

  Despite Camille’s readiness to tell anyone how close Anna and she were, that they were so alike in their personalities, and even mannerisms, it was her father whom she truly felt closest to. He accepted her without any desire to assert his ownership over her. To let her be his daughter rather than Camille’s need to always be recognised as Anna’s mother. As is always the way with children and parents, the more Camille needed her, the more Anna pushed her away.

  But that was over. Camille was gone.

  Anna wanted to crawl out of her own skin. The heat was searing now. Burning down on her face like a laser, warming her blood to boiling and drying her skin to a leathery parchment. Somewhere at the back of her mind she sensed she was safe. In a bed, probably a hospital, beyond that she didn’t dare think.

  When Anna came round, she was aware of a blinding pain caused by a bright light shining in her eyes.

  ‘Steady now.’

  ‘She’s conscious.’

  ‘Anna, it’s ok. You’re safe. You’re at the Royal Victoria hospital. You have some injuries, a concussion, some cuts to your face and a bashed-up shoulder, but really you’ve been lucky. Your shoulder will hurt a bit, but we have given you some pain medication that will kick in real soon. You’re best trying to sleep for now.’

  Sleep. She wanted to fall into the blackness of sleep, but something was bothering her. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do. She had something important to focus on, but what was it that was out of reach?

  Later she woke, hearing herself moan. Pressure on her shoulder was causing pain to radiate out in jagged spears across her chest and down her arm. She tried to move it into a better position but the pain was more intense and she just about stopped herself shouting out. She steadied her breathing in an attempt to gain control. Beyond the hospital room she could hear the murmur of voices, the clink of a tea trolley and a distant telephone trill.

  Her tears threatened to spill over. She was so stupid to have put herself in that situation. Who did she think she was, stumbling in on a riot like some sort of tourist voyeur wanting to see a bit of Belfast action? She knew the score, knew the risks yet thought she could sit on the side of the road and watch it.

  She was in pain, laid up for God knows how long but at least she was safe. It could have been so much worse. Carefully she moved her good arm and wiped at her tears. She tentatively felt stitches across her cheekbone and the soreness of bruising beneath her eye. She didn’t want to know what she looked like. Not a pretty sight.

  The Halloween mask clad faces, the angry chants of ‘Get her, get her. PSNI scum!’ clawed from her consciousness, making her gasp at the memory. She had been terrified. Somehow on a primitive level she had fought them, kicking, scraping at them with her nails, biting, but she was powerless against their strength and numbers. The Land Rover had rammed at them, barely in time, but not before hands had grabbed at her breasts, in lurid aggression. Her body dragged by her limbs from the car, she watched them torch it, petrol and fireworks creating an explo
sion of Technicolor splendour. Almost beautiful, amidst such ugliness.

  31

  The next day Anna checked herself out of the hospital. Thomas came to pick her up and greeted her with a bollocking.

  ‘What were you thinking off? Have you any idea how fucking dangerous your little stunt was?’

  She still winced from the pain in her shoulder, but she figured she would be recovered enough to drive in a day or so. In the meantime, she would be out of the office - Richard had insisted she take a few days off, despite her protests.

  ‘Please, no lecture; take me home and fill me in on the case on the way.’

  ‘We’re still chasing up that one name on the security staff list who we haven’t been able to contact.’

  ‘The Luke Nead man?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Have we anything to connect him to Robert Brogan?’

  Thomas pulled out into the outside lane, passing an Ulster bus. ‘Not as yet, but he’s definitely worth chasing up. We know it’s the same security firm Finnegan uses from time to time so we desperately need to speak to him. He worked various sites around Belfast and Holywood so he would have known the venues and crime scenes well. He wasn’t booked to work the nights of the murders, but that’s not to say he didn’t turn up and blend into the background until he chose his moment.’

  ‘That’s as good as a lead as we’ve had. Any address to check out?’ Anna asked.

  ‘The security firm was sketchy. Looks like he was paid cash in hand and didn’t work regular shifts. If they needed him they gave him a call. The payroll girl gave a description; medium height, clean cut, good dresser, but wasn’t sure she could give a good enough description to help get a photo-fit drawn.’

  He must have felt bad, for he swung the car by Tesco’s and said, ‘Sit there, I’ll get you some supplies.’ She didn’t want to think about what Thomas considered essentials. A frozen pizza and four bottles of Magners, no doubt. But still, she wasn’t complaining.

  The case was shifting. She could feel it. They had reached that almost imperceptible moment when it stopped dragging its heels and began to pick up some momentum.

  Her phone buzzed. A text message from Declan, checking to see how she was. She had managed to convince him that she was well enough, that she’d merely had a scare and that wasn’t worth the risk of visiting her. He could be seen by one of her colleagues or even the press.

  Thomas returned carrying two plastic bags with groceries. ‘I hope you’re not expecting me to cook for you as well,’ he said, starting the engine.

  Anna opened the front door and breathed in the familiar scent of the house. Now that she had been here a few months, the place had begun to feel like home. She winced with pain as she took her leather jacket off and left it on the banister before making her way through to the kitchen. Thomas followed with the shopping.

  ‘Will you be all right for a bit? I’m heading back to the office,’ he said looking at her with a mixture of pity and frustration.

  ‘Yes, I’ll be ok.’ She wanted him to leave. She felt so vulnerable and close to tears. She needed to weep and get rid of the emotion threatening to choke her.

  ‘If you need anything, let me know.’

  ‘Call me if there’s anything of interest,’ she said, though neither was holding out much hope. It felt like a stalemate scenario.

  ‘Sure. Get some rest and I’ll see you in a day or so.’

  While Anna appreciated his gruff kindness, she was relieved he hadn’t hung around.

  The time passed in a blur of rubbish daytime property programmes, eating cheesy Doritos and drinking Lucozade – Thomas’s idea of supplies. By evening she was feeling stir crazy. Her facial injuries had turned fifty shades of purple, while the stitches felt tight and itchy. The shoulder pain was eased by the codeine and ibuprofen, but going out was not an option. She was still feeling a little delicate and queasy, though that could have been from the pain meds.

  She decided to call Cerys. It had been a few months since they had spoken. They were both so busy that they had relied on sending texts. Brief updates that didn’t required too much thought. After the past few days, she felt like she needed to hear a friendly voice.

  ‘Hey you!’ Cerys said on answering. ‘Hang on till I put Gethin into his high chair so I can talk in peace.’ Anna lay on the sofa, listening to the sounds of domesticity that had become her friend’s way of life. She could picture Cerys’ homely kitchen, the hand painted kitchen cupboards in some ridiculously named shade of Farrow and Ball, like Elephant’s Breathe. The Emma Bridgewater pottery and the Cath Kidston tablecloth. The perfect scene of family life, a silent rebuke to Anna’s existence of take away suppers and half empty bottles of wine.

  ‘So, how are you? How’s Ireland?’

  ‘Yea, it’s all good.’ There was no point in telling Cerys what had happened. She didn’t need another lecture and she didn’t want to worry her. ‘It’s different in so many ways, but I’m adapting. This case I’m working on is driving me mad.’

  ‘Nothing new there then,’ Anna could sense Cerys smiling at her, and probably rolling her eyes. It didn’t feel right to lay all the shit of the last few days on Cerys. Not for the first time, she considered how her job made her feel apart from normal life. No wonder cops tend to get together with other cops, she thought.

  ‘How’s motherhood?’

  ‘Tiring. No strike that – exhausting! You would not believe how little sleep I get and I haven’t even got you here to moan to.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve been a lousy friend. Have you seen Jon?’

  She heard Cerys draw a breath, ‘Ben took him out for a pint last week. He said you guys had spilt. Ben thinks he’s seeing someone else. I’m sorry Anna.’

  ‘No, don’t be sorry. It’s ok, really, he told me.’ A sudden painful, loneliness grasped at Anna.

  Cerys said, ‘So come on, when is your time up? I need my friend back home to keep me sane and take me on the odd night out before I morph into one of those zombie mummies who only talk about cracked nipples and baby poo.’

  Anna laughed, ‘I’m not sure, there’s a lot to do here.’ How could she begin to explain how Belfast had got under her skin or maybe it was the pull of being with Declan. Either way she was in no hurry to go back to Cardiff.

  Maybe it was the warmth in Cerys’ voice, but she suddenly and unexpectedly found herself crying.

  ‘Hey, Anna. What is it? Tell me,’ Cerys demanded.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a bit low. It’s good to hear your voice.’

  ‘You’re still in the throes of grieving for your mam. It was too soon to go haring off to Northern Ireland. You need to be here, with your friends and family around you.’ The baby cried in the background. She could hear Cerys shushing him.

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine. It’s been a long day. Go to Gethin and give him a big kiss from me. I’ll call you again soon.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re ok?’

  ‘Definitely. I promise. All’s fine.’

  There was no point in telling her about the riot. She didn’t want her dad hearing about it.

  ‘Ok. Well make sure you are looking after yourself. No living off takeaway meals and coffee. That’s an order!’

  It was late when Anna woke to find herself on the sofa. Something had disturbed her sleep. She had taken two painkillers around seven o’clock and they had helped to take the edge off the injuries and let her sleep. Now her shoulder ached. A deep burning pain that only a large whiskey could touch. She heard it again, a soft knock on the back door.

  Dragging herself of the sofa, she headed to the kitchen and checked through the side window. It was Declan. He’d come after all.

  Later that evening, relaxed, having drunk a bottle of good wine, they lay wrapped into each other when Anna said, ‘So explain it to me.’ She rolled over on to her side, placing one hand on Declan’s bare chest. Her head was fuzzy with the alcohol and the pain medication. She’d probably have one hell of a hangov
er in the morning but for now she didn’t care. She could feel Declan’s heartbeat, strong and steady, beneath her hand. Neil Young was singing about the needle and the damage down in the background. Declan’s choice. They had drunk a bottle of red and had explored each other until they were both satisfied and tired.

  ‘This place has some psychos running around. You’ve seen for yourself,’ he gently traced a finger across her stitches at the side of her face.

  He continued, ‘Some of these kids have been brought up on a diet of brutality. Every day they are fed hatred, bigotry, the likes of you couldn’t understand. They were educated in separate schools, lived in sectioned off estates defined by peace walls and kerb stones painted with the tribal colours. And when they weren’t being spoon-fed hate at home, it was painted on the gable walls where they played football. Smashing a ball against a propaganda slogan, so carefully crafted and presented that it was almost like art. Banksy had nothing on them.

  ‘Then they would hear the news, another victim, another shooter. Knee cappings up dark entries, punishment beatings for dealing drugs or pulling someone else’s girl. Hit a woman or sexually assault her and she doesn’t bother with the police. Too long and drawn out and not even the certainty of a conviction in a court system she has no faith in. So, she has a word with a friend of a friend and before you know it he gets a late-night call from six men with balaclavas and hammers. Justice is dealt. Everyone knows the system.

  ‘So, ask yourself what happens when so-called peace comes along. The control and the power seep away, to be replaced by normality and civilised living. There’s a vacuum, a well of hate and anger and violence that needs to find an outlet.’