The Psalm Killer

by Chris Petit

  It had happened soon after Cross had arrived in Belfast. At the time it had been widely reported that the death was the work of satanists. There had been previous reports of black magic rituals in republican areas and, as the murdered boy had been Protestant, there was a large element of hysteria attached to the case.

  ‘Why was McKeague not charged?’ asked Cross.

  ‘From what I know of McKeague he was quite capable of buggering little boys but I’m not sure he was up to murder. The story I heard was that McKeague’s name was linked to the killing as a piece of slander by his Protestant colleagues.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was an embarrassment. Too queer for their taste.’ McCausland sighed noisily. ‘Look, Inspector, at the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, we’ve all sifted through these stories a hundred times, McKeague and the rest of them. Because of the inefficiency of the various local authorities in exposing the scandal there’s the natural tendency to see the whole thing as part of some cover-up. Cock-up is more like it, if you’ll excuse the pun. And if Warren believed he was cracking Kincora then it was the act of a desperate man.’

  McCausland said he didn’t know of any Heatherington and quickly excused himself.

  Cross went home feeling restless and dissatisfied, to find himself in Deidre’s bad books even more than usual for not turning up at her parents’.

  ‘The children hoped you would read them a story.’

  ‘There’s still time.’

  ‘They’ve been asleep an hour!’

  When Cross walked into Nesbitt’s office he found another police officer there, with grey hair like iron filings and unblinking eyes of unsettling intensity.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Nesbitt brusquely. ‘This is DI Cummings.’

  They nodded cautiously at each other. Cross was disconcerted to realize that Cummings reminded him of a thin version of his father. The dark green uniform was carefully pressed and starched in a way that made him feel slovenly. He wondered who Cummings was – CID, Special Branch?

  ‘Tell us about Mary Elam,’ said Nesbitt.

  The Elam case was the one Cross had the least desire to discuss. There was the illogical but very real feeling that Mary Elam was not being co-operative: if the dead were so reluctant to reveal their secrets they could hardly expect the police to bend over backwards for them. The investigation had not thrown up a single worthwhile lead. The van Mary Elam had been seen getting into seemed to have vanished into thin air. Hargreaves had gone back to check the Strathaven. There were rooms upstairs and a separate back entrance which Mary could have used. One or two of her men admitted going there with her and said she had regarded it as a bit of a dare, a couple of Taigs doing it in the heart of enemy territory. The landlord McElwaine was the likeliest suspect, but they had nothing on him. The Elam case was turning out like the Berrigan and Warren cases – inquiries that no one wanted. It was a stalemate. The whole fucking country was a stalemate.

  Cross dutifully told Nesbitt and Cummings that their inquiries were concentrated on the Strathaven Bar.

  Cummings made it clear that he doubted Cross’s ability. Cross marked him down as one of those handsome policemen who finds himself on camera a lot, with the necessary actorish confidence to make appearances count. They were usually adroit in committees, too, and hell to work for.

  ‘I’m working on the assumption that Mary’s killer knew her by sight,’ said Cross cautiously. ‘If her death was planned, then he knew where he was going to take her. I don’t think she was killed at the Strathaven, unless it was done with the collusion of the landlord.’

  ‘A rather nasty piece of work,’ Cummings said.

  If Cummings was so well briefed then why, wondered Cross, go through the whole charade of having to inform him.

  ‘I would sweat that landlord, if I were you,’ added Cummings.

  ‘He’s been sweated,’ said Cross, thinking he was probably covering for Hargreaves.

  ‘Go on,’ said Cummings, making it plain that the landlord was still very much in his mind.

  Cross continued lamely, explaining that Mary Elam’s last movements possibly involved one of her usual haunts and where she was murdered may well be close by, but remote enough not to attract attention. He told them that Hargreaves was in charge of a search of deserted buildings near the Strathaven.

  ‘We’re still checking. I feel we’re very close to a break.’

  He wondered why Nesbitt and Cummings were taking such an interest.

  ‘I want DI Cummings to take over the case,’ Nesbitt said abruptly. ‘He will, of course, liaise with you and I know you’ll give him every co-operation.’

  He looked at Cross sharply. This was a professional slap on the wrists. Cross realized he had been half expecting it since being called in. He was prepared to admit to himself, though not to them, that he had handled the case badly. He couldn’t decide whether it was laziness or instinct. The latter told him that there was more to the business than met the eye, though for the life of him he couldn’t see what. But he was equally prepared to accept that he was guilty of sloppy thinking.

  Looking at Cummings’ disciplined little mouth and shiny buttons, he realized that since the hearing and the business with Deidre, which were now irrevocably linked in his mind, he had been increasingly haunted by the idea of some other life, one that did not involve looking under his car every day for bombs. Deidre was why he had come to Belfast in the first place and now their future was in doubt he questioned the point of everything.

  21

  GUB O’Neill said grace before Sunday lunch, praying that ‘the Good Lord see to the needs of those less fortunate’. Cross bowed his head and stared at one of his mother-in-law’s soup concoctions. After his failure to show up the week before, Deidre had made it clear that there would be no excuse this time.

  Barbara O’Neill carved the roast, keeping up a running commentary on the state of anything and everything from the quality of the meat to pop songs on Radio 1. She knew the cost of everything to the penny, from a can of beans to the price of a united Ireland. It was her way of keeping up with the times.

  ‘Who’d want to live in Eire – the cost of living. I mean they’re nearly bankrupt! And they’ve nothing like the social services that we do.’

  Like most women of her class and generation, Barbara O’Neill dressed in pastel woollens and wore her hair in a perm like an iron helmet. Make-up and powder were immaculately applied and she always smelled of perfume. Being a traditionalist, she liked to give the impression of being Gub’s ‘wee woman’ and argued that women shouldn’t work, though she had a career of her own in local politics, as a magistrate and local councillor.

  Although Cross was vaguely included in the conversation he felt like the fourth tennis partner, stuck on the baseline while the others rallied round the net. He and the children were largely silent during the meal.

  The O’Neills had recently moved from a very large draughty house on the outskirts of Belfast to what they called a modest bungalow, in fact an expensive piece of architect design built on land overlooking Lough Neagh where planning permission regulations were waived because Gub O’Neill had the necessary clout.

  Cross’s father-in-law was officially retired and liked to give the impression that his activities were restricted to chopping kindling and shining shoes, though he continued to earn a good living from private surgery. O’Neill had done well out of medicine but had always managed to pretend that he was merely an ordinary doctor in public service, and cautiously screened the extent of his wealth.

  In his carefully pressed cavalry twills and neat checked shirts and cravats, and with his impressive head of silver hair, he cut an imposing figure, reminding Cross more of an admiral or a general. His bearing and posture reflected centuries of breeding, realized in the effortless beauty of Deidre. Their grandchildren’s attractiveness – the fact that they took after their mother rather than Cross – was obviously a source of enormous relief. The threat of int
roducing inferior stock had been averted by the fortitude of the O’Neill genes.

  Cross was only starting to realize the extent to which the O’Neills were influencing the direction of his children’s lives. Since their birth, Deidre had moved towards accepting her parents’ values, previously scorned. As the children grew, they plotted their future, leaving Cross feeling redundant.

  Male O’Neills did not become policemen. Government administration, the armed forces, the clergy and medicine were what they did, as well as applying a canny business sense to the stock market. The fact that the family fortune was founded on trade – traditionally disapproved of by landed families like the O’Neills – was conveniently forgotten. Until Gub’s grandfather had rebelled against tradition and gone into the munitions business the O’Neills were well bred but never rich landowners. The move paid off handsomely for Austin ‘Shooter’ O’Neill, especially towards the end of his career when the firm was kept on permanent overtime, providing for the demands of the First World War. After gorging himself on a lifetime of enormous profit, ‘Shooter’ embarked on a world tour and shocked the family for a second time by marrying – his first wife having died only shortly before – a swarthy Mediterranean adventuress half his age, with few words of English. Fortunately for the O’Neills, Shooter’s heart gave out before he could alter his will in her favour. She was never invited to Belfast.

  Cross would have found Deidre’s family less formidable had the weight of tradition sat more heavily. But they were relentlessly unceremonious, always organizing chaotic family games, where the need to win was barely disguised, and entertaining with cardiganed informality. Social activity was centred around what they called the parlour, an enormous extension that incorporated a ranchstyle kitchen, a picture window view of the lough, an open fire, eating space and a large television, which was left permanently on.

  Over pudding, Gub O’Neill got on to his pet subject.

  ‘All she’ – meaning Mrs Thatcher – ‘has to do is let the security forces wipe out the IRA.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy, how can you say that?’ said Deidre, by way of token objection.

  ‘I fought during the war with an Irish regiment and you couldn’t ask for better men – if you lead them. But they’re no good without leaders. The IRA is just the same. Remove the leadership and the rest would fall away very quickly. The UDA and the UVF – that’ll go by the board if they wipe out the IRA. What do you think?’

  O’Neill was looking at Cross, who was reluctant to engage. He sensed Deidre’s impatience across the table.

  ‘I really don’t know any more,’ he began laboriously. ‘I think I thought the British government should take a more decisive line towards withdrawal, a five-year plan after which the troops would leave. And I think I thought that they should appoint a Minister of Education for Northern Ireland because until you get the children together you’ll not get rid of the bigotry.’

  The O’Neills looked horrified at the prospect. Barbara O’Neill moved smoothly in. After Cross’s stumbling, her fluent riposte was a snub.

  ‘I can see the point of what you’re saying, but it’s not as easy as you think. When I look back on when I was a little girl, you were either very definitely Catholic or very definitely Protestant. Everyone knew what everyone else was. I never played with Roman Catholic children.’

  ‘Over my dead body is what you’re saying.’

  Cross heard Deidre’s sharp intake of breath. It was the first time he had insulted Barbara O’Neill.

  ‘Is exactly what I’m saying,’ she said, with a level stare and a smile that disguised a will of steel.

  His triumph had barely lasted a second. He was naïve to think that she was unequipped to deal with his attack. In the silence that followed Cross knew that he was supposed to respond, realized too that Barbara O’Neill scented blood. He tried to think of some witty response but was weighed down by the silences of his childhood.

  Gub O’Neill took advantage of his slowness and barged in.

  ‘When Merlyn Rees was here as Secretary of State, I said to him one day, “Merlyn, until you really carry out what you know and believe to be right – and that is that the IRA should be taken out – you’re never going to get anywhere. There are a whole lot of good bogholes here and you should make use of them.”’

  ‘They’re terrible cowards, you know,’ added Barbara O’Neill.

  They weren’t, in Cross’s opinion, but what was the point in saying so.

  ‘Just a Paddy here and a Seamus there, nobody knows where they are. And if they did that, the boys will soon get cold feet. And you may get one or two wrong ones by mistake, but what’s that among so many?’

  Cross wanted to say that as far as he was concerned the North could be dumped unceremoniously into the hands of the republicans and that bigots like them should face the choice of martyrdom or conversion to the Church of Rome, and see how they liked that.

  Gub O’Neill droned on about some current inquiry.

  ‘Waste of bloody public money if you ask me.’

  ‘Not in front of the grandchildren,’ his wife interjected.

  ‘Does ’em good to hear a bloody now and then, doesn’t it, Mattie?’ The boy giggled. ‘Big boys’ games, big boys’ rules, eh? You’d go along with that, wouldn’t you?’

  His grandson nodded in bewilderment as O’Neill turned his sights back on Cross.

  ‘If the basic attitude of the government towards the security forces is get on with the job and keep the lid on things, then it should let them get on with it and not enquire too closely about what goes on under the lid. Either they do that and show a bit of responsibility or they have the guts to declare all-out war. What you don’t do is let them get on with it and throw up your hands in horror when some mishap comes to light. What about all those colleagues of yours that have been shot or blown up? Do you think the IRA cared about the Geneva Convention when it was killing them?’

  ‘Now, children, have you all had enough?’

  Both Cross and Deidre came under this banner as far as Mrs O’Neill was concerned.

  ‘Who’s for coffee?’

  The situation improved a little when they took the children for a walk, which meant that Cross could play with them and avoid Gub O‘Neill, who was on to the iniquities of the dole.

  ‘Too many of them look upon it as a payment for a life of doing nothing.’

  ‘Now shut up a moment, Gub, and look at that view. Isn’t it perfectly charming?’

  Perfectly charming was Barbara O’Neill’s highest accolade.

  ‘Perfectly charming,’ echoed her husband. The view was of the lough in pale sunlight. The grey sky of earlier had given way to blue and the day was mild. Without meaning to, Cross found himself standing next to Deidre.

  ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine. A nice lunch.’

  The way she said it everything could have been all right.

  ‘I’ll take you back, then I must work.’

  ‘You work too hard, darling.’

  The endearment was thrown in for the benefit of Barbara O’Neill, who had joined them.

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?’

  ‘I can’t really,’ he said.

  ‘Surely it can wait till tomorrow? Leave the children with us and go off somewhere nice with your wife.’

  Deidre looked panicked at the thought, and just to rile her he said, ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it, darling?’

  She appeared annoyed by the returned endearment.

  Under the brisk command of Barbara O’Neill, they found themselves being bundled off and told to collect the children in the morning.

  ‘But they haven’t got their pyjamas,’ protested Deidre feebly.

  The children, delighted by a break in their routine, were unconcerned by such details.

  Cross and Deidre found themselves driving back to Belfast, wondering what on earth they were doing.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said Cros
s. ‘Why don’t we forget about things for the rest of the day and call a truce.’

  Deidre glowered, giving no quarter. He’d had enough and braked hard so that she was thrown violently forward in her seat.

  ‘You bloody fool, what was that for?’ she said, angry and rattled.

  ‘Shut up and listen. Until you told me about you and whoever it is I thought things were basically OK, not terrific but OK, and once the hearing was over I wanted us to have some time to ourselves to make things better. That’s what I thought. I know I haven’t been attentive lately—’

  ‘I’m not telling you who he is.’

  ‘Stop being so fucking childish. What difference can it make?’

  They hammered away at each other, hurling insults until Deidre sank back in her seat, flushed and breathless. Cross experienced an inappropriate stab of desire, and wished he could put aside his self-control and take her in his arms. A fuck was not the solution to all their problems, but it would be a start, he thought grimly. But what he took to be a slackening was her rallying for another screaming onslaught.

  ‘Arsehole! You pompous arsehole! You should have seen yourself at lunchtime. Stuck up, poker up your arse – just because you think my parents look down on you, you feel you have the right to come on all high and mighty, Mr fucking Plod. Arsehole! Arsehole!’ With that she was out of the car. ‘Go solve your fucking murders!’

  Cross sat at the wheel, shaken. He nearly went after her but decided he’d not be seen crawling.

  22

  CROSS arrived at Berrigan’s farm in the middle of the night, half expecting to find Berrigan there. When Deidre had not come back by ten he had looked for her in several restaurants she liked, hoping for a showdown. Then he had driven around aimlessly, chain smoking a ten-pack of cigarettes, before deciding. He went via Maghera and Dungiven, crossing the border at Londonderry. He drove fast, concentrating only on his driving.

  He got lost several times in the forest lanes and nearly turned back, struck by the pointlessness of his journey, but then found the burnt-out car that had pointed Donnelly in the right direction.