The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3)

by McGowan, Claire

  Luckily, at that point, Avril stuck her head into the room. ‘Everyone, you’re wanted up the hill. DCI Corry has Dominic Martin under arrest. They’ve matched samples from his shoes to the mineral from the caves, and they’ve lifted Lily Sloane for questioning too.’

  Even in the unflattering lighting of Ballyterrin police station, Lily Sloane was beautiful, her skin luminous, her hair shining under the fluorescents. She was wearing jeans and Uggs and chewing on a fingernail. She looked up when Gerard and Paula went in – Corry had decided it was best to continue the rapport they’d supposedly built up, even though last time this had resulted in Lily crying.

  ‘Hi, Lily. Are you OK?’ asked Paula.

  ‘Well, not really. What am I doing here?’

  ‘We’ve arrested Dominic, I’m afraid. We just need to ask you a few questions about him.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  Gerard sat down, clearly trying to curb his usual hard-man approach. ‘I’m sorry. We need to check where everyone was on the day the Mayday Five disappeared. It’s called eliminating from enquiries. He’s already told us he doesn’t have an alibi. But if Dominic messaged you that day, say, or if you spoke to him, it might help us let him go. Do you see? Would he have texted you?’

  ‘Not while driving,’ she said, stern.

  Gerard almost smiled. ‘Of course not. But during stops? Do you keep his messages?’

  She looked blank. ‘Messages?’

  ‘Your texts,’ said Paula, getting a little tired of Lily’s ingénue act. The girl was twenty-three, after all, not fifteen.

  ‘I get loads,’ she said vaguely. ‘My phone doesn’t keep them after a week or so. They like get erased.’

  ‘The phone company should have them.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lily went back to chewing on her nails.

  ‘Do you remember where Dominic was on the first of April?’ Gerard was still pushing on.

  ‘When was that?’ Lily was vague, distracted.

  ‘When the Mayday bombers went missing.’

  ‘Duh. I mean, like how long ago?’

  ‘It was a month ago, Lily,’ said Paula, shifting forward. The baby rolled with her. ‘You need to tell us if you know anything. It could be very serious if you don’t and we find out later you lied. Dominic says he was out on the road that day. Were you with him?’

  ‘I don’t go with him,’ she said, sulkily. ‘I’ve got my college course. Probably I was there.’

  ‘Do they take attendance?’

  ‘Yeah. Usually.’

  ‘So we can check if you were there.’

  ‘You could if you could be bothered.’

  Paula and Gerard exchanged a glance. Paula began to speak quietly. ‘Lily. I know you want to protect Dominic. I know you’ve all been through hell. But three people have been murdered, and another three are missing, and we have to follow that up, no matter who they were. We have a lot of evidence linking Dominic to the crimes. He might go to prison for a long time. You can help him.’

  Lily was staring at the table, her long hair pooling on it. ‘How?’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘Tell us everything you know.’

  With trembling hands, Lily was reaching under the table into the rear pocket of her jeans. She unlocked her phone with a click and passed it to Paula. ‘Look. I want you to.’

  Paula scrolled up the message list, trying not to read them but getting a general impression of smileys and kisses from Lily, a more restrained tone from Dominic. Contrary to what Lily had said, they went all the way back to 1st April. There were several from that day, but all from Lily asking where he was and was he missing her, the kisses gradually dropping off as the day went on, culminating in CALL ME PLEASE.

  Paula looked up. Lily’s head was drooping, so her caramel hair pooled on her lap. ‘Did he ever call?’

  ‘Later. He got busy, he said. He doesn’t like to answer when he’s driving. He’s . . . he’s very good.’

  ‘Lily.’

  A small sob came in answer. ‘What will happen to him?’

  ‘Well, we can check his phone data. He might have made business calls that day. And we can talk to his customers – he keeps records?’

  ‘He writes it down in a little book. But some days he just goes up into the hills to see where they can put a windmill or something.’

  ‘A wind turbine?’

  Lily was anxious now, wanting to help. ‘Yeah. One of those things. Can you check that?’

  ‘I’m sure we can. Now one last time, Lily – if you know anything about these disappearances, you really have to tell me now. You might have seen that the mayor is also missing now, and we think it’s connected. It’s very serious.’

  ‘I – I don’t know anything.’

  Gerard jumped on it. ‘Ms Sloane, please tell us. Have you ever heard Dominic or anyone else talk about revenge, anything like that?’

  ‘It’ll help Dominic if I tell you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well – I don’t know if this has anything to do with it. I don’t go to all the meetings. I have college and stuff. But one time I went – it was after the court case all fell through, you know. There was talk in the meeting about what to do next. John was in charge. You know old John. He always talks to me like I’m five. Anyway, Dominic stood up and he started shouting. He said we had to do something. Did John not understand these people had killed his child, and was he supposed to sit back and take it? John said they’d killed his child too – you know, Danny, that was his son, he was at my school – but there wasn’t anything left to do. All the money was spent and they just had to leave it in God’s hands. Dominic said where was God when his wee girl was dying under him.’

  ‘And what did John say?’

  Lily’s face was streaked with tears on one side. She’d put on heavy make-up to see them, thick mascara on her one good eye. It was a terrible thing to see, someone with one missing eye trying to cry out of it. Paula knew it was unprofessional, but she moved to the other side of the table and awkwardly put her arm round the girl.

  ‘He said . . . he said he didn’t know where God was, and if he thought about it too much he’d lose his faith, and he couldn’t because that was all he had left now. That’s all I know. Honest.’

  Paula looked at Gerard over the girl’s shaking shoulders. He nodded reluctantly. ‘Come on, Lily,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘Can I go home?’ she sniffed.

  ‘You can go home for now, yes.’

  As she led Lily into the reception area, the girl bolted and ran into the arms of a woman wearing an expensive jumper and jeans, who from the resemblance had to be her mother, Katrine. Only forty-five herself, she had shorter, highlighted blonde hair, and the same turquoise eyes as Lily – except hers were intact.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Katrine Sloane fixed them with a cold glare over her daughter’s shoulder. Lily was several inches taller. ‘How dare you arrest her without me or her father?’

  ‘She’s twenty-three, ma’am,’ said Gerard, following behind. ‘It’s perfectly legal. Anyway, she wasn’t under arrest, we were just questioning her.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s illegal,’ she snapped. ‘I’m talking about basic human decency. Have you people no idea what my daughter’s been through?’

  ‘Just take me home,’ Lily wept, her voice muffled in her mother’s shoulder. ‘Please, Mum. Get me out of here.’

  Gerard looked at Paula again, sighed. ‘Corry wants you to observe the interview with Martin.’

  ‘Mr Martin,’ said Corry briskly. ‘I’m sorry we’ve had to take you in today. We’re sympathetic to your loss, please believe that.’ She was sitting across the table from him, Gerard at her side. Paula was watching from outside the room.

  He sat relaxed in his chair, watching Corry from his green eyes. He wore jeans and a blue T-shirt with paint on it. ‘But I’m here in the interview room.’

&
nbsp; ‘It’s unavoidable. You were caught on camera making death threats to people who later turn up murdered. You own a van of the same description as one seen at the crime scenes, which we are reliably informed was used to pick up the victims – and one of them actually died in it. You must see we had to bring you in.’

  ‘It was stolen,’ said Martin calmly. ‘Terrible time, when you can’t leave a vehicle without it being stolen.’

  Gerard leaned in. ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? With your link to the bombers.’

  He met their gazes steadily. ‘Could be I was targeted. An easy suspect.’

  Corry made an impatient gesture. ‘There’s reported stolen and there’s stolen, Mr Martin. I think we both know the difference, so let’s not waste each other’s time. You had the means to carry out the kidnap and we found mineral traces from one of the crime scenes on your shoes, the sea caves down at the coast.’

  He eased back in his chair. ‘Well, I go there a lot. I used to take my daughter. Amber. She’s dead now, so I go alone.’

  Corry looked at him closely. ‘I was working that day,’ she said, changing her tone. ‘I was in the control room when the warning came in. We missed it.’

  He said nothing, but his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

  ‘I just wanted you to know,’ she went on. ‘The dispatcher who missed the warning lost her job. Of course, we get hundreds of threats all the time. There was no code word and the warning was vague. But it was in my power to stop it, Mr Martin. It was in my power to save Amber, and I didn’t. I’m so sorry.’

  He looked away – score one for Corry. ‘It was no one’s fault but the people who primed and set the bomb,’ he said. ‘I’ve never blamed anyone else.’

  ‘But still. We felt responsible. My supervisor put a gun in his mouth.’

  Dominic almost smiled. It was one of the most chilling things Paula had ever seen. ‘Collateral damage,’ he said.

  Corry stiffened. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘That was the phrase they used, wasn’t it? The Ireland First lot. They hadn’t meant for children or women to die – that was just unfortunate. There’d been – what was the phrase they used?’ He paused as if trying to recall. ‘I can’t remember.’

  Corry watched him. ‘I’m not sure what you mean, Mr Martin.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you do. It was reported quite widely in the press. They got their voices heard, that lot. My daughter meanwhile had barely learned to talk. She could say three words. Do you know what they were? One was “doggy”. One was “no”.’

  ‘Mr Martin—’

  ‘The other was “dada”. A daddy’s girl even then – well. Do you have children?’

  Corry ignored him. ‘Where were you on the first of April, Mr Martin?’

  ‘Out on the road, like I said. I was siting a new wind turbine. Planning laws, you know – it’s a nightmare.’

  ‘You were in your van?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Can’t get my equipment in the Lotus.’

  ‘You were in your white transit van.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alone.’

  ‘I work alone, yes, and the reception up there is dire.’ He smiled. ‘Not that more masts are the answer.’

  Corry put a picture on the table. ‘For the tape, I’m showing Mr Martin image forty-two, a white transit van proceeding down Bluebell Road, home of the deceased Callum Brady. Is that your van, Mr Martin?’

  ‘It’s hard to say.’

  ‘Why is it?’

  ‘You can’t see the registration. It’s been covered up.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. What I’m asking is if you were driving on that road on April the first – the day when Callum Brady and the other four suspects went missing.’

  ‘I can’t say. Who can remember where they go?’

  ‘Mr Martin, we have witnesses. The two brothers who went with you that day – Joseph and Danny Walsh. The men Jarlath Kenny sent to help you. They’ll testify they were in your van. But if you cooperate it might go easier on you. Tell us where they are – Kenny, and Flaherty, and Catherine Ni Chonnaill. She has three children, you know. They don’t deserve to be orphaned, whatever their mother may have done.’

  ‘Who are the Walshes?’ he said, frowning. ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘You’re denying all this?’

  ‘My van was searched after it got torched. There was nothing to link me to the case, no forensics, nothing, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Not that we could find. There’s the shoes.’

  ‘That’s circumstantial and you know it. You’ve interviewed me already, DCI Corry. I’ve cooperated. We all have – we’ve let you into our homes, even though we know you’re trying to find the people who murdered our loved ones. Are you going to charge me? Because if you are, I’d like you to get on with it. Use these witnesses that you say you have.’

  ‘You made threats after the trial. To kill the Mayday Five.’

  ‘I was upset. They murdered my wee girl and they walked free. You’d feel the same.’

  She watched him for a long time. ‘I might feel the same, Mr Martin, and I might even say it, but I wouldn’t ever do it.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, with what looked like genuine interest. ‘If you’d nothing to lose. If a prison sentence didn’t frighten you.’

  ‘I don’t have it in me,’ said Corry. ‘I’m a rule-follower. Always have been.’

  ‘That’s a shame. For you.’

  ‘And for you,’ said Corry. ‘I’m sympathetic, but I don’t do allowances, Mr Martin. There’s been far too much of that in this country. I do the law and nothing but.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m glad to hear it. No doubt you wouldn’t have made mistakes and blunders, like the police and Gardai who let the case collapse against my daughter’s killers.’

  She watched him, seeming to come to some decision. ‘OK, Mr Martin,’ she said. ‘We aren’t going to charge you. Not yet anyway. You’re free to go.’

  ‘Thank you. Could I have my jacket please?’ He clicked his fingers as he stood up. ‘Oh, I remember what the phrase was. “Unforeseen escalation.” Isn’t that what they said, in the Ireland First statement? There was an unforeseen escalation.’

  Corry didn’t turn a hair. ‘If you say so, Mr Martin. I don’t have a memory for such things myself. I’ll send an officer to show you out.’

  ‘Thank you.’ And he smiled right at the camera, as if he knew they were all watching there, looking out for a slip-up and finding absolutely none.

  Thump, thump, thump. Paula heard the noise before she saw it. She’d just arrived back at the station to get some files, bone-weary from dragging the baby around all day.

  Avril was standing in the yard outside the unit building, shivering in a light blouse and grey skirt. She had the lid open on the large blue bin and was systematically throwing things into it from a cardboard box at her feet. Paula recognised in her gestures a certain desperate theatricality. ‘What are you doing?’

  Thud. Another item went in. ‘Getting rid of these.’

  Bridal magazines, Paula could now see. The smiling women, perfect-teethed, shiny-eyed, elaborately coiffed, clutching flowers and generally looking as if they couldn’t take one more bit of happiness or they might explode in a puff of taffeta and lace. ‘The wedding stuff? Why?’

  ‘It’s not happening.’ Thump, thump. The smiling women disappeared under the mounds of old teabags and sandwich wrappings in the bin.

  ‘What? Are you joking me?’

  ‘Of course I’m not joking! Alan wouldn’t believe me about Gerard, and he said some awful things about, about religion and that. Unforgivable things. I never knew I was engaged to a bigot, I said.’

  Paula glanced at Avril’s hand, which was indeed still bare of the sparkler that had adorned it, save for a reddened band of skin. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes! It’s for the best. I can’t marry him if he’s a bigot, can I?’

  ‘And your family?’

  ‘It doesn
’t matter about my family!’ She stopped her throwing and ran an angry hand across her face. ‘I thought you might understand, at least. I mean you didn’t . . . and you had . . .’

  ‘I do understand. Hey, if it’s not right you should definitely break if off. As long as you’re sure.’

  Avril sounded miserable. ‘I’m not sure. How can you be?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. If I can make a suggestion, Avril, the best thing to do at a time like this is . . .’

  ‘What? Don’t say pray. I get enough of that at home.’

  ‘No. I was going to say – have a drink. Then have another one. Then another, until you feel better.’

  ‘You mean go into a pub? On my own?’

  ‘Well, or get a bottle of wine in the shop.’

  ‘Mammy wouldn’t let me. She’d call in the minister to get me exorcised or something. They don’t really drink at all.’

  If she wasn’t so heavily pregnant, Paula would have taken her to the pub and fed some drink into her. Though the idea of boozing with Bob Hamilton’s niece, who was from a hardcore temperance family, did make her mind boggle a bit. ‘Trust me. It will help. There are worse ways. But I’m sure you’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Avril’s lip was trembling. ‘I’m sorry to be so . . . when your friend isn’t well. I know it’s not important, not really.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Paula still hadn’t been back to visit Maeve. She knew she should, but she hadn’t, and despite her own excuses about how busy the case was, she knew this was not the real reason. ‘I’m sorry about your uncle too. I didn’t . . . I never meant for that to happen.’

  ‘It’s – let’s not talk about it. I know you had your reasons.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Avril had come to the end of her pile of magazines and was shivering in her thin cotton top. ‘Did they let him go? Dominic Martin?’

  ‘They had to. We can’t link him to anything, not solidly, anyway.’

  ‘So . . . what do we do now?’

  Paula wasn’t sure if she meant the case, or something wider. Either way the answer was the same. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’

  Kira