The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3)

by McGowan, Claire

  Paula put the book down. It was all coming back to her: the death, the screaming, the shock. Blood misting the camera lens. In all the horrific litany of the Troubles, this bomb was somehow the closest to home, the nastiest last sting in the tail. And here she was trying to find the likely perpetrators, help them, save them. She didn’t want to think too much about that.

  Chapter Four

  Paula could hardly believe the change in John Lenehan – he’d suffered a stroke after the Mayday trial collapsed, she knew, but it was still shocking to see him, his hair turned entirely white, his back stooped. Despite being permanently confined to home, he wore a shirt and tie under his jumper. ‘Would you like me to get that, Mr Lenehan?’ He was struggling from the kitchen on a walking stick, but the look he flashed her as he put down the tray of tea was pure steel. ‘I’d be dead and buried before I’d let a woman in your condition serve me, miss. You sit down.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  With much difficulty he arranged his own tea, the cup and saucer rattling, as he lowered himself into an old upright chair. Everything was near at hand, the crossword, the glasses on a string, the bottles of pills. The walls were lined in holy pictures and framed family shots of a handsome boy and a pretty woman in her fifties. Mary Lenehan had been thirty-five when she wed, nearly forty when Danny came. Several months after her son was blown to pieces on Crossanure High Street, her husband had found her body hanging on the landing of the house they now sat in. John Lenehan was seventy-three. Before Danny died, he’d been an active man in his late sixties, still farming, a Eucharistic minister and devout Catholic who got on well with his Protestant neighbours in the rural belt outside Ballyterrin. Now he was . . . like this.

  ‘What was it you were wanting me for?’ He had perhaps noticed Paula’s eyes wandering to the pictures. His words had a slight slur – you could hear him forcing them out.

  ‘You may have seen that a body was found at the weekend.’

  ‘Michael Doyle.’

  ‘Yes. Mickey. We’re sure it’s him.’

  John nodded grimly. ‘He hanged himself, I heard.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Paula hesitated. Guy was still outside on his phone, chatting to his best bud Corry, no doubt. ‘He was hanged, yes. But we aren’t sure if he did it himself.’

  The ageing man sat up very straight in his chair. He leaned forward and set the shaking cup upon the coffee table – old, scarred, just like him. The manoeuvre took a full fifteen seconds. ‘What is it you’re telling me, miss?’

  ‘We think someone killed him. There were certain . . . signs that it wasn’t suicide.’ They’d agreed not to release information about the note in the mouth, as a way of weeding out confessions. ‘So I’m afraid we’re going to have to speak to the families. We need to eliminate them from the investigation.’

  John was silent for a moment. She realised he was looking past her head, at the picture of his wife and son. He didn’t say anything for a while.

  Paula spoke. ‘Mary . . . she couldn’t go on after it?’

  He looked at her. His blue eyes were leached of colour, his eyebrows white caterpillars. Paula let him look at her for a long time. She didn’t need to say anything. Eventually he shifted. ‘You came to tell me it was murder, miss? If indeed it’s possible to murder a man like that. Do you need to have a soul to be murdered, or is it more like putting down a rabid dog?’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m a Christian, miss. Nothing that happened changed that. If we can’t forgive we have to endure. Now what did you want with me? The man’s dead, seems not much can change that.’ He paused. ‘That was their argument too, as I recall. The Ireland First lot. Too late to bring people back, so what was the point in a trial?’

  ‘The other four are still missing, and we think it’s now looking orchestrated – a mass kidnap, with the intent to harm.’

  ‘They said they had no intent,’ he said, still looking over her shoulder. ‘You remember that? Plant a bomb on a busy shopping street, but not meaning any hurt. There was a lot of talk about intent back then. What makes a crime. What makes a sin.’

  ‘Mr Lenehan . . . I understand not everyone is part of your support group—’

  ‘No. There were a few disagreements along the way. Human nature, sadly. Some wanted to fight in the courts, some preferred to get on with some kind of life.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘It’s not much living when you’re like this.’ He indicated the walking stick, the house settled about him like an old coat. ‘As I said, I’m still a Christian.’

  It wasn’t really an answer, Paula thought. ‘We wanted to let you know as Chair that we’ll have to speak to the families and survivors. We’ll be as tactful as we can, but we do have to speak to everyone involved and try to get alibis. If you could relay that message, it would be very helpful to us. Thank you.’ She went to get up, then realised she couldn’t. She was entirely sunk into the soft cushions. ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Here.’ Shifting to his feet, the old man helped her up. His hand was very cold. Paula righted herself. ‘Thank you. I’m a liability at the moment.’

  ‘When are you due?’ His voice was gruff.

  ‘In two months, God willing.’ Yes, she’d said God willing. Some atheist she was.

  ‘May God bless you.’ He said it like he had a direct line to the man himself.

  The door opened and Guy came in, tucking his phone away. ‘Mr Lenehan, so sorry to keep you. I’m DI Guy Brooking.’

  Paula and John Lenehan exchanged a look. ‘I’ve spoken to the doctor here,’ he said. ‘Get her to tell you what I said. Look after yourself, miss.’ He stumped off to the kitchen with their cups rattling a shaky fandango in his hands.

  She indicated to Guy they should go out, shutting the door quietly behind him. ‘What was your call about?’

  ‘The autopsy’s been done on Doyle. Traces of a sedative in his system. They’re trying to isolate the compound now, as it could be a good lead. But one thing’s sure – it definitely wasn’t suicide.’

  He opened the car door for her, unthinkingly courteous. ‘What do we do next, then?’ She got in, with difficulty.

  ‘We interviewed the families of the bombers when they went missing, but we better go back now we’ve found Doyle, see if they know anything else. Perhaps you’d go with Gerard – I’d like your insights.’ Guy started the car.

  ‘You can’t come with me?’

  ‘I have to go to Belfast tomorrow. Big meeting.’

  She waited for him to tell her what the meeting was about, but he didn’t. ‘OK . . . who should I go to?’

  ‘We’ve spoken to Doyle’s wife already, and Lynch and Brady didn’t have close families. You should speak to Catherine Ni Chonnaill’s mother. She’s looking after the children.’

  ‘What about Flaherty?’ Martin Flaherty. Paula thought back to his picture. In it he was carrying a thin plastic bag from the corner shop which clearly contained a copy of the Irish News and a packet of ham slices. He owned a car dealership in town and had done well out of it. Yet this harmless-looking man had orchestrated the deaths of dozens of soldiers over the years, booby-trapped cars, bombed a pub in Manchester killing four students, and likely been the driving force behind the carnage of 1st May 2006. ‘Flaherty’s widowed,’ said Guy. ‘Lives alone. He has one daughter, Roisin, who’s in Dublin.’

  ‘Are we seeing her?’

  ‘No, they haven’t spoken in years, apparently.’

  ‘Doesn’t really matter. If people are in trouble they nearly always go to family first, however long estranged.’

  ‘Would you like to visit her, then?’

  The question was surprising. ‘Well, sure, but am I not needed here?’

  ‘We can call you in if we need you.’

  Paula understood – sending her to Dublin was an entirely pointless errand, a safe way to get rid of her and her embarrassing cargo. Out of the front line. She stared out the car window, annoyed. ‘OK. After that we interview the fa
milies of the victims?’

  ‘Unless we find some answers before then. Really we should have questioned the mayor by now, but apparently that would “inflame” local sensibilities.’ Guy sighed, changing gear as they slowed down in the traffic nearing town. ‘It’s a very odd case.’

  That was true. For a start, it wasn’t often you had more sympathy for whoever the killer was than the victim.

  Kira

  Kira told everyone she couldn’t remember the bomb. It was easier, and it made them feel better. She could see them relax, and sometimes they’d say things like, ah, it’s for the best. Poor pet, she’s blocked it out. But what it was really like was having something under your bedclothes, twisting and turning around, like when the cat’s in there so you can’t see it but the shape’s there and you know it’s about to come out. For a long time it was like that. Then she woke up one night too scared to scream. Her tongue in her mouth was dead and the breath crushed out of her lungs. What she’d remembered had no eyes but the smell was there – burned, and something yellow she knew was blood. And the sound – the little noises you knew were people trying to scream, but everyone had the wind knocked out of them and your ears had gone and the silence was the most frightening thing. You’d been blown over, so your back was raw against the ground. Bits were falling down on you like burning rain. Plaster. Brick. People.

  You tried to breathe. No one knew for ages it was a bomb. You just knew the world blew up. You were born the year peace came. You never knew about bombs.

  For a long time you could see nothing and that was a blessing, but it was there waiting. One day you saw Rose after the bomb. Her face was gone. There was her hair, her lovely blonde hair all dirty, and then a space of just blood, and then her body. You saw something on the ground and it was Rose’s leg, twitching, blood pumping. It had blown off her. Her leg wasn’t attached any more.

  Rose was still not dead then and making a noise through the place where her face usually was. You went to her, though you were eight and it was horrible and you couldn’t believe any of this.

  Your arms were all red. Her blood. Rose’s blood blown all over you and in your eyes and mouth and nose. You could hardly see anything, eyes swimming in a line of blood, like when your goggles filled up at the pool.

  Rose was making a noise. Kind of like Mmmmmok . . . kay? You couldn’t talk. You held her hand, which couldn’t stop twitching, and told her it was OK somehow, even though she had no face or leg any more. There was blood all over the pavement, running down it like rain.

  ‘Mm . . . OK?’

  She was asking if you were OK. She was dying and she wanted to know were you OK.

  ‘It’s OK,’ you croaked. ‘It’s all fine.’ Your last words to her were a lie. You knew that she was dead before she did.

  Chapter Five

  ‘You OK with the belt?’ Gerard and Paula were driving to one of the dodgier parts of town in a police-issue Skoda. He’d reluctantly agreed to leave behind his beloved Jeep – it was too recognisable as a PSNI vehicle, and in the area they were visiting, that was enough to get you two slashed tyres, and if you were very unlucky, a car bomb underneath.

  ‘I’ll manage.’ She arranged it awkwardly round the bump.

  ‘Not long now then.’

  ‘No.’ She ran her hands over it, stretched tight. ‘It’s very heavy – it’ll be a relief in some ways.’ But not in all, because then she’d be forced to take time off work. She winced as a foot caught her kidney. Gerard saw it and his eyebrows went up in alarm. ‘Relax, I’m not going to break my waters all over the car.’

  ‘Say if you are. I wouldn’t have a baldy what to do.’

  Paula also wasn’t keen on having her child by the side of the road with only Gerard Monaghan’s big lug for assistance. ‘I’ve a while yet. Just take me there.’

  Gerard was eating a packet of Tayto Cheese and Onion crisps, the smell filling the car, turning her stomach. ‘I am,’ he said through a handful. ‘It’s not the best area, you know. I’m surprised—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just, in your condition . . .’

  ‘I’m not dying.’

  ‘Hm.’ He kept stealing glances at the bump, his fingers crumbed with crisps. ‘I’d not want my wife working right up to the day of the birth.’

  ‘Oh right. I must have missed something, then. Do you actually have a wife?’

  ‘No, but— . . .’

  ‘She’s unlikely to be working, then, is she? Since, you know, she doesn’t actually exist.’ Gerard sulked, rattling the last bits out of his crisp bag. It was pure revenge that made Paula say the next thing. ‘I see Avril’s set a date for the wedding.’ She watched him for a reaction, but none came. Nothing had happened since that odd moment at Christmas – Avril was getting married, Gerard flirted with every female in sight, and Fiacra, who’d taken Avril’s engagement hard, had morphed from a cheerful young country boy to a moody, ambitious thorn in all their sides. Although he had other reasons to have changed, admittedly. ‘I wonder if we’ll be invited,’ she said.

  ‘Dunno. You’ll hardly be able to go anyway, with the wean.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She relented – she was hardly the person to poke her nose into other people’s affairs. Although officially no one knew Guy might be the father of Paula’s baby, she was sure everyone had noticed the spark when they’d first met, and if they could count at all, it wasn’t a huge leap to make. She shut up, and they drove the rest of the way in silence. Soon they were passing walls covered in murals – Hunger Strikers, Peelers Out, Bloody Sunday memorials. Centuries of bitterness slapped up there in lurid colours. They parked in a rundown estate where the kerbs were painted green, white and gold. Immediately a crowd of kids gathered. ‘Here, mister, that’s a nice car.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Gerard locked it. ‘Who’s gonna keep an eye on it for me?’

  ‘Me, me!’

  He picked out the tallest lad, freckled in a Celtic jersey. ‘I’ll give you two quid if it’s all in one piece when I get back. Come on, Maguire.’

  ‘I see none of them were prospering, anyway,’ said Gerard. ‘Bit of a dump, this.’

  Catherine Ni Chonnaill lived with her three children in a sad, pebble-dashed end of terrace. The overgrown grass in the front yard was mined with bin bags and broken toys, and when they rang the bell the paint on the door was flaking.

  It was opened a short while after by a sixtyish woman, shouting at a pit bull terrier to be quiet as it worried around her heels, pressing its wet nose into Paula’s leg.

  ‘What do yis want?’ The eyes travelled to Paula’s bump.

  ‘We’re with the MPRU,’ said Gerard. ‘The Missing Persons Response Unit. Could we come in, please, ma’am?’

  The ‘ma’am’ usually did the trick. She stood aside to let them into the dingy living room. It smelled of fags and the brown carpet was marked by cigarette burns. Two children, a boy and a girl, sat watching cartoons on a big TV. They didn’t look up as Paula and Gerard came in. There was nowhere else to sit – the kids were on the crumby sofa, and propped on the brown velvet armchair was a baby, sniffling, his face encrusted with baked beans. The woman, who was presumably his grandmother, wiped his face with a tea towel and asked again what it was they were wanting.

  ‘We need a word with you about your daughter,’ said Gerard. ‘It’d be better if the wee ones didn’t hear, though, if you see.’

  ‘Tara, Owen, go outside.’

  ‘Wa-ah!’ The boy, who had two pierced ears and a Man United shirt, grumbled.

  The grandma swatted him with her towel. ‘Get out of my sight, you wee skitter.’

  It was windy outside, and a light drizzle pattered down, but the children went, both in bare arms. Seven and five, Paula knew they were. ‘Well?’ said the grandmother. ‘I’m feeding the wee one so I can hardly put him out.’

  ‘What’s his name?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Peadar.’ The third child, the one who wasn’t Ronan Lynch’s. He stopped grizzlin
g when a plastic spoon with more beans was shoved in his mouth, but Paula couldn’t tear her eyes from him, the food mess, the snot round his pudgy nose, and the smell of dirty nappy wafting from his little blue jeans.

  ‘Mrs Ni Chonnaill,’ she said. ‘I’m a forensic psychologist, so my role in the unit is to produce reports on the missing to see if there’s anything that might have made them go.’

  ‘It’s Mrs Connell. I don’t hold with that Irish rubbish. And you’d be better served looking after your husband, love, ’stead of parading about with all and sundry looking at your belly.’

  Paula blinked. ‘Er – well – never mind me. I need to ask you about Catherine. Obviously we’re very worried about her, since Mickey Doyle’s death. Where do you think she is?’

  It was a question so obvious it rarely got asked, but Paula found it could be surprisingly useful. Know the person and you’d often know where they were. ‘Who knows with Catherine? She’s most likely annoyed the Ra again and gone off.’

  ‘You’re saying she sometimes left the country to escape the IRA?’

  ‘Aye, two or three times. Around the Belfast Agreement. They don’t like all that Ireland First business, the Ra.’

  ‘Your husband died in 2004, I believe?’ Gerard was making notes again.

  ‘Not soon enough, ould bastard that he was.’

  The child put up his dirty hands for the spoon. Paula averted her eyes. ‘And these other times, did Catherine tell you she was going?’

  ‘Oh aye. She’d ring from phone boxes and that. I told her to stay away, make a life in England, but her da wanted her back.’

  ‘But she hasn’t phoned this time?’

  ‘Not a word since the text. She said she was late at work and would I lift them from school. What did your last maid die of, I texted back, and could she not have rung me at least? But she never answered.’