by Chris Petit
He studied Seamus like a specimen. Tell anyone they have only a short time to live and they see life only in terms of regret. This stupid carpenter was no different, and in the end he welcomed the advice to flee for his own safety and to tell no one. He was to tell his woman that he had work in the South and would send for them when he could. He was to do this immediately, because his safety could not be guaranteed.
Seamus went home and delayed, pretending that what had happened that evening hadn’t taken place. But then the stranger came a second time, to the house, and said he would not warn him again, time was running out, and Seamus panicked and disappeared as he was told.
In the months that followed, the sadness and disappointment grew on Mary’s face. He began watching her more closely, following her to the chemist for the pills she hadn’t needed until then, and noting the start of the drinking and picking up men. Once or twice he thought of going with her just to hold her and listen to her heartbeat. But he didn’t. Only in control was there tenderness.
The day would come soon. He read the Bible and picked out the right bit for her. Soon she would be relieved of her misery. He noticed that about death, the gentler ones at any rate: faces lost all trace of suffering.
The red car would come for her. They could try to trace that but it wouldn’t do any good: it would be destroyed by then. She would come to where he was waiting, come willingly because he would have talked to her beforehand, telling her he had news of her man gone to the South.
‘It’s Mary, isn’t it? You’re the spitting image of Seamus’s description.’
Just to be able to say that – to see the hope in her eyes – was why he had sent the man away.
Drownings upset Cross more than other deaths. Everybody felt bad about them, even the usually imperturbable scene-of-crime squad.
Cross stood hunched in his overcoat, feeling miserably exposed to the cold night air. There had been a change in the weather soon after he’d arrived at the lough. Large snowflakes had started to fall and before they were done the ground was white and one of his shoes leaked.
Death by drowning produced its own sluggish rhythm and a profound silence different from other deaths, as though the act of immersion put the corpse at an even further remove. This one had been only a short time in the water, with none of the bloating of the long drowned. She was shoeless, dressed only in a tatty skirt, blouse and extravagantly coloured cardigan. Bruising to the neck indicated that she might have been strangled first. The lack of coat suggested that this had not been done outdoors.
Looking at her mottled skin and sodden clothes, Cross could not picture her ever having been anything but dead. Usually he was only too aware of how alive they had been and his lack of feeling in this case troubled him. He wondered who she was. It was the main sadness of his work, knowing his role was to arrive too late.
Deidre was asleep when he got home, and up and dressed before he woke the next morning. The light beyond the curtains seemed unnaturally bright and clean, and for a moment he could not remember why.
A carpet of white covered the garden. Snow hung from the trees and the sun shone in a clear sky, not yet warm enough to start the thaw that would turn it to slush before lunchtime. The children were already out, wrapped up, and starting a snowman. Cross knocked on the window and waved. He could hear Fiona’s squeals of delight beyond the double glazing as she jumped up and down, waving back.
The dead women was identified as Mary Elam, aged forty-two, when her sister, Josephine Reilly, reported her missing, after hearing of the death on the local news. She duly confirmed to Westerby that the body in the morgue was Mary.
Cross’s morning was spent on paperwork for other killings – routine domestic disputes and a pub knifing, all despatched with what felt like unseemly haste, files closed almost as soon as they were opened. He suspected Mary Elam would be the same. Most of his murders were like that, Friday night affairs where drink had been taken. One case on his desk involved a drunken husband who had bludgeoned his wife to death then phoned the police. Cross had arrived to find him cradling the dead woman and bawling like a baby. His own conscience had been troubled by the selfish relief he had felt at being called out instead of having to go home.
By one o’clock the snow was slush and the sun, having done its work, disappeared behind low cloud, leaving Belfast to its customary grey. It was drizzling by the time he went with Westerby to a house in an older part in their district, a mixed neighbourhood of grimy two-ups and two-downs where Mary Elam and her sister lived.
Several children peered anxiously from the end of the dark hallway. Cross counted five, an older boy and the rest four or five years at the most. Three of them turned out to be Mary Elam’s and were being looked after by Josephine, a tired-looking woman in her late thirties.
She showed Cross and Westerby into the good room of the house. The children, all too curious to show any grief, gathered in the doorway, drawn by the novelty of a visit from the police.
Josephine said, ‘It’s all right, I’ve told them but it’s not sunk in yet, except maybe with Liam.’
Liam, the oldest, was beckoned forward and sat on the arm of Josephine’s chair. He told Cross he was eleven.
‘And you understand from your aunt what has happened?’ asked Cross.
The boy nodded gravely.
‘This is WPC Westerby,’ Cross went on. ‘Perhaps you could take her and the others into the kitchen while I ask your aunt a few questions. I’ll not take long.’
Josephine Reilly turned out to be quite precise in her answers and needed little prompting. She seemed to have decided that the best way to deal with her grief was to be as factual as possible.
‘I saw Mary on the Monday morning. She lives only two doors away so we saw a lot of each other, but I didn’t see her the rest of that day and on the Tuesday she gave the children breakfast as usual, according to Liam. She didn’t take them to school that morning. Sometimes she walked with them or she left Liam in charge. He’s a responsible boy and there are no roads to cross except one where there’s a lollipop patrol, though I don’t know why I’m telling you that. When they came back after school Mary was not there but that’s not unusual. She has a habit of going off without saying and when that happens the children stop over here.’
‘How do you mean, she went off?’ asked Cross.
‘Gallivanting.’ Josephine smiled wanly. ‘Mary liked a good time. It’s no problem for me to look after the kids.’
‘She went off without telling you?’
‘Not always. But Mary didn’t keep the same time as the rest of us. She lived in a different world and that’s what we loved about her. With Mary you can feel like you’re away from yourself, and for the kids being with her was more of a holiday than I can ever manage. She was blessed with an imagination. I need to feel the ground under my feet.’
She started crying silent tears.
‘You’ve no idea who she went to see on the Tuesday.’
‘I’ve no idea who she went to see ever. It was never local.’
‘And how long was she away on these occasions?’
‘A night or so, but, like I said, it was nothing for me to look after the wee ones.’
Cross asked to look at Mary’s house and said that he could go on his own if it was too upsetting for her. Josephine nodded.
‘It’s number forty-three. The key’s on a string through the letter box.’
Mary’s house was the mirror image of Josephine’s, with rooms to the left rather than the right of the front door. Other than that, it was another world. The hall was a fantasy of drapes, the ceiling a dark blue stuck with stars and crescent moons of gold. As Cross moved to enter the front room he drew back, startled by some peripheral flicker, and waited for the shock to settle. Peering through the crack of the door, he saw that the television set had been left on without the sound. What was it about this country, he thought, that compelled everyone to leave the television on regardless of whether anyone was wa
tching? Even his rich parents-in-law did it.
He switched off the set and looked around. The room was even more startling than the hall, like something out of The Arabian Nights, with more drapes, this time fixed to the ceiling, and cushions scattered on the floor. Looking closer, Cross saw that underneath it was like thousands of other rooms in the city, with its three-piece suite, no doubt bought on hire purchase, cheap carpet and Sacred Heart of Jesus above the mantelpiece. An old white telephone, grubby with age, stood on a table beside the sofa and scrawled on the wall behind were numbers, some with names by them, all men’s.
The rest of the house showed no evidence of housekeeping. The fridge was unstocked and what looked like six months’ supply of empty wine bottles lay around. Upstairs the beds were unmade and in the largest room a cupboard was stuffed with garish clothes, jumble shop bargains by the look of them. Dozens of candles were stuck in wax-encrusted saucers. Cross couldn’t help contrasting the orderliness of his own home with the imaginative chaos of Mary Elam’s.
It was her, he presumed, in the curled photograph on the dresser – a striking-looking woman, well preserved in spite of poverty, with a look of mischief and defiance. Cross wondered how long it had been since he’d seen the same look in Deidre’s eye.
11
Belfast, July 1971
CANDLESTICK had crossed over the water that July, in the summer of Rod Stewart, after falling in with another soldier on leave in Liverpool by the name of Baker. He joined him on the ferry with five others for a drinking spree that ended in Belfast, where Baker had relatives. Baker, with his military swagger, was treated as a local hero among his own kind, a tough man to be bought drinks, who could advise loyalists how best to organize their own defence against the IRA. The mood in Protestant Shankill that summer was one of uncertainty and fear.
After the other soldiers drifted home, Candlestick remained, ostensibly on account of a woman he was seeing. When his leave was nearly up, Baker told him it would be worth staying for the opportunities presented by the paramilitaries’ fledgling protection rackets. Teenage gangs called the Tartans were doing most of the collecting, mainly at the instigation of a clamp-jawed fanatic McKeague, dismissed by Baker as a toy soldier. The collections were erratic and badly run.
‘These fellows are crying out to be organized.’ Candlestick sensed that Baker needed him for an audience and went along with Baker’s picture of them as the only reliable elements in a world of intrigue and rumour, forged by their common army bond, professionals among amateurs. It was second nature for them to watch each other’s backs, he said, though by then Candlestick had decided Baker was a fantasist, happy to subscribe to Belfast as a cowboy town with himself as the hero. When Baker started to hint that he was on special duty, Candlestick let himself be gradually persuaded, after an initial scepticism. Baker said he had been approached through his regiment on account of knowing Belfast and offered a clandestine operation. He added that he was recruiting, if Candlestick was interested.
Candlestick shrugged and said that was beside the point. He was probably listed as missing from his regiment.
‘That’s the last thing they care about. I’ve been given fucking immunity, man. We can rob banks if we want.’
Candlestick was curious about Baker’s employer. Baker clearly didn’t know who was hiring him, though it hardly mattered, from what Candlestick could see. The only clear thing about Belfast that summer was that everyone was operating in the dark-street riots, the erection of barricades turning sections into no-go areas, mass early-morning arrests, the law of the assassin’s bullet.
Candlestick made a phone call that night and said, ‘I’m in.’
No questions were asked by Baker’s handler, Captain Bunty, when he met Candlestick at the Candlelight Inn in Rosemary Street. Belfast was, as Baker said, wide open and Bunty implied that they were free to take what they wanted in exchange for getting in with the Protestants.
‘At the moment the Prods couldn’t hit a barn door at two feet. On the other hand, we can’t be seen to be helping them.’
Bunty was a soft man with glasses and a rosebud mouth. He cultivated an air of fastidious detachment, occasionally expressing bewilderment at the stubbornness of the Irish.
He shook hands as they left and said that he would get the two guns Baker wanted. A garage owner named Tommy Herron was the man he wanted them to watch because when the various local defence organizations amalgamated, as they soon would, Herron would come out on top.
Although Baker and Candlestick were familiar figures in Protestant West Belfast, they were not known on Tommy Herron’s patch in the east. Baker suggested they announce themselves in style, so they swaggered into a vigilante bar on the Newtownards Road and asked for the man in charge. When no one stepped forward Baker laid his newly acquired Browning on the counter. The room went quiet.
‘Tell your man to be here this time tomorrow.’
Candlestick found the atmosphere both hostile and demoralized on that first visit. When they returned the next day it was plain mean. The man who introduced himself was a big man going to fat. He was with two dockers and didn’t seem impressed.
‘Who collects your donations, Mr Eddoes?’ asked Baker.
‘What business is it of yours?’
‘It’s our business all right. We’re in the business of charity collection.’
The man on Eddoes’ right took a step forward and Baker let him see the gun in his waistband. When he hesitated Candlestick flattened him anyway. After that they adjourned with Eddoes to a back room.
‘What are your rates?’ asked Baker.
‘Twenty-five pence a week at least for householders and forty quid a week for businesses.’
‘And how efficient are your collections?’
Eddoes looked sulky. Baker stood up.
‘It’s no skin off our noses. You’re in a mess. We’re trained, you’re not. Now answer the question.’
‘Enough gets back, but I suspect some fellows are out for themselves.’
‘We’ll put a stop to that. You’re wasting your time if it’s just going into some tearaway’s pockets. We’ll make everything neat and tidy. We’ll arrange your collections and you can work out how to distribute them. The basic rate stays the same but businesses should be fifty quid, with a review of those that can afford more. What I’m proposing will double your money in a month and we’ll pay you one per cent for the privilege.’
Eddoes made greedy eyes and asked for three. They split the difference. When Baker announced their fee was seven and a half per cent Eddoes yelped in protest.
They took over immediately. Their main rival was McKeague, a violent homosexual who surrounded himself with a cohort of youths. For reasons that Candlestick never understood, Bunty took great interest in spreading word of McKeague’s criminal record for buggery, gradually discrediting him until he was isolated from the rest of the UDA.
On his collection rounds Candlestick made a point of being polite, treating those he was extorting like valued customers. Many grumbled that their money was going straight into private pockets. The purchase of seaside caravans was said to have flourished since the introduction of the levy. Candlestick said that was all changing and was careful to cultivate an impression of honesty until his presence on the street brought a sense of security and contributors fooled themselves into believing they were getting value for their money.
The few businesses that were reluctant to cough up did so after Candlestick threw a recalcitrant shop owner through his own window. The story spread until it came to the attention of Tommy Herron, who by then was the leader of the newly formed Ulster Defence Association, as Captain Bunty had predicted.
‘What brings a couple of Brits to Belfast?’ asked Herron in the upstairs room of the Vulcan bar.
‘We’re the Magnificent Seven,’ said Baker.
‘You’re five short of a full house,’ said Herron, amused.
‘Laugh if you want. It’s your town needs protectin
g.’
Herron looked at Candlestick. ‘Have you got anything against shooting Fenians?’
‘Not if I’m paid.’
Herron laughed his big laugh and ordered up more drinks. He was drinking Red Heart, a bottled stout made by a Catholic brewery for sale in Protestant areas, and he chased it with Scotch, Candlestick noticed, rather than Irish whiskey. He toasted them, saying what excellent fellows they were. ‘My kind of boys.’
Unlike other loyalists they had met, Herron had a plan. He dismissed the rank and file of the association as an ill-disciplined rabble with a propensity for drink and idle threats.
‘We should be out fighting the IRA, not sitting in pubs nattering like a bunch of old women.’
‘What about the Ulster Volunteer Force?’ asked Baker.
‘The Ulster Volunteer Force has less than half a dozen men with any leadership ability, and one’s half mad. And in the last two years it has done absolutely fuck all, apart from rob a few banks, damage a memorial, blow up a bloody pylon and bomb the home of a nationalist MP. What is needed, gentlemen, is a reign of terror. It’s the only way to bring those Fenian bastards to their knees. Are we speaking the same language?’
They were. Recognizing their talent for violence, Herron made them bodyguards to the UDA’s inner council. He swore them in personally in an upstairs room decorated with the various flags of the union. There was a sword and a Bible on a table and the witnesses wore camouflage and dark glasses. Candlestick found the whole process slightly risible, a bunch of pasty-faced, overweight men pretending to be Hibernian gunslingers. They’d need some teaching, he thought, as he listened to Baker declaiming the oath of allegiance.
‘Being convinced in my own conscience that there is a conspiracy to bring about a united Ireland by use of force,’ Baker recited, ‘I will actively defend, by any and all means possible, the area under the control of the Council.’
‘Who are all you guys?’ Candlestick asked Bunty when he felt he knew him well enough, not that he expected an answer.