The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3)

by McGowan, Claire

  I said I had spoken to him already. She became agitated at that. ‘Did he tell you about me? Did he say where I lived?’

  He hadn’t, but I didn’t answer this. ‘Have you anything to say to me, Ms Ni Chonnaill? Anything to say to the victims and families of those killed?’

  She paused on her doorstep. She was covering the baby’s head with her scarf, as if she didn’t want me to see him, or him to see me. ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Just . . . it was never meant to happen. It wasn’t meant to be . . . the way it was. Not all those people.’

  ‘Then why did you do it?’

  ‘Please. Please leave me alone.’

  I stopped then, because I did not feel right accosting a woman with a baby. Which was not, of course, a qualm she had herself when her actions led to the deaths of sixteen people, including two infants and three children.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was a baby. Of course it was, what else could it have been?

  Paula had never been maternal. Even as a child playing with Saoirse, she’d been the one to give her dolls Mohicans and draw on their faces with green fluorescent marker, or remove their jointed limbs in a sad amputation storyline (it was no wonder she’d ended up working with murderers all day). But this baby was different. It was hers.

  She regarded her – Maggie – through the glass of the cot. It didn’t seem right that she’d been allowed to name another human being. She’d told her father when he came in, waiting for the reaction: ‘I want to call her Margaret.’ Would it feel like a judgement, since he’d just married another woman? He’d been quiet for a while, rocking the baby in his big arms. Paula was an only child, so she’d never seen him hold a baby before. He’d said, ‘Aye, that’s nice, but maybe a short name . . . something her own.’

  ‘Maggie, I thought.’ Maggie. She’d been thinking of the child as this for so long, a secret name. Now she was out, and other people could know her too. Paula had known her a long time.

  ‘Wee Maggie.’ He tasted the name. ‘That suits her.’

  ‘She was never Maggie, was she – Mum?’

  It felt wrong to say her name, but it was OK.

  ‘No. Just Margaret. Wee Maggie. Welcome, pet.’ The baby stretched her starfish fingers and blinked, making those little cat noises Paula had become accustomed to. She was so small, her skin red like a blister, born too soon. Now the baby was out, she still felt tied to her by every inch of skin. The pull was almost physically sore if someone took her away to be weighed or changed.

  ‘Can Pat come in?’ asked PJ suddenly.

  Paula was startled. ‘Of course! You mean she’s outside?’

  ‘She thought . . . you know, with things the way they are.’ Pat was Aidan’s mother. That meant none of them knew if she was this baby’s grandma, or its step-grandma, or both. Paula closed her eyes, feeling the slow seep of pain from various parts of her body. ‘I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t deal with this now.’

  She’d been so focused on getting the baby out, surviving the horror stories of childbirth. And now Maggie was here, pink as a seashell, and Paula still had no idea who her father was. She’d researched it half-heartedly while pregnant, her belly pushing against the laptop. It was quite simple, apparently. You could buy tests in Boots. A little cotton bud in the cheek, it wouldn’t even hurt Maggie. But Paula, arms already itching to take her back, press her against her face, knew she couldn’t bear the idea. ‘She’s only hours old. I don’t want – things done to her. She’s herself. It doesn’t matter who – you see?’ She’s mine, was what Paula meant. I made her and I gave birth to her, and right then it didn’t seem very important which stupid encounter had resulted in this chubby little body squirming in her arms.

  PJ was embarrassed. ‘Aye, aye, plenty of time for that. Pat just wants to see her is all.’

  ‘Will Pat mind? I mean . . . she’s still her granny. Either way.’

  It was the second risky thing she’d said, but he seemed pleased. ‘Would you tell her that, love? Would you say she’s her grandma? It would mean the world to Pat, it really would.’

  ‘Of course.’ It wasn’t as if Maggie had any others at the moment. Paula wondered fleetingly what Guy’s mother was like. Was she even alive? She pictured a stern, cold Englishwoman, maybe with pearls and a Labrador. Which was unfair, given that Paula had no idea what background Guy was from. His mother could just as easily be a Cockney pensioner with a blue rinse. All a world away from plump Irish Pat, bustling in the door, arms bursting with teddies and flowers and chocolates. The latter made Paula wince a little – she would now have to lose the several spare tyres, more than enough to meet Road Safety guidelines, which had settled around her midriff.

  Pat was well meaning, but tiring. Paula forced herself to say, as casually as she could, ‘And here’s Granny, Maggie,’ then ignore the misting in Pat’s eyes as she held the child.

  ‘Maggie,’ she repeated. ‘It’s a lovely name.’ Awkwardness was glossed over with good will. As much as they could, anyway. No one mentioned Aidan, but she could feel them searching the child’s face, looking for a telltale dark eye there, a curve of the chin here. A Brooking or O’Hara. Neither – she was to be Maggie Maguire. Maggie deserved a little while to get used to the world before people began to label her. Paula herself could see nothing but a baby, dark blue eyes and a fuzz of red hair, as if she’d made Maggie entirely of herself.

  ‘Well, we’ll let you rest,’ said PJ, when the nurses came. No one mentioned Aidan but surely he’d be there, somewhere? Surely they were both still there? Aidan would be in with Maeve, if nothing else. The thought threatened to pull her down into some complicated darkness, so she pushed it away.

  When they’d gone, she turned to the child almost as a conspirator. ‘Just us, pet.’ She realised she was looking forward to getting home just the two of them, shutting the door. As Maggie had come so early, she had to be kept in for a few days.

  Later, Saoirse had come. Which was nice, but also tiring, because Paula hadn’t tried for five years, right at the start of the queue for IVF before she was even thirty. She hadn’t tried at all. But why should she feel guilty? She realised she was holding herself tense when her friend arrived, laden down with flowers and toys. Overkill, maybe to mask her own guilt at feeling jealous. ‘Hiya.’

  ‘Hi.’ She struggled up. ‘Sorry – I’m a mess of stitches.’

  Saoirse’s eyes were riveted on the baby. ‘Oh Paula. She’s gorgeous. She’s just gorgeous.’

  She was, of course, but did all mothers think that? Her little nose, her dark lashes, the wise look already in her eyes. ‘Do you want to hold her?’

  Saoirse hesitated. ‘I might hurt her.’

  ‘Ah no. She’s pretty sturdy, though she was so early.’ She passed the baby over, the light weight of her – so light it hardly seemed credible – with a pang. She’d sworn she wouldn’t be one of those ‘once you’ve had one, you’ll understand’ women. ‘I’ve no idea what I’ll do,’ she confided. ‘I’ve to take her home in a few days. Imagine! I never even had a goldfish before.’

  Saoirse said, almost to herself: ‘I want one.’

  ‘I know you do, love.’ What did you say? It’ll happen? Paula knew enough to be sure that false hope was often worse than no hope at all, and so she said nothing.

  Within a day or two, the ceiling above Paula’s head had become her main point of interest. It was cream, with a pipe running down it and a large, rusting stain. It wasn’t very interesting at all, in fact, and so she had to rely on her brain for the hours when her father or Pat or Saoirse weren’t visiting her. She’d asked her dad to buy a notebook, and he kept forgetting on purpose. He didn’t think she should be working, so in the end she’d begged the nurse to give her a bit of clipboard paper and a chewed biro. All the while her body was pumped in and out, the catheter slowly draining her and the drip filling her up, like a machine. She wished her mind was a machine that could compute the facts of this c
ase and spit out a neat answer, someone to arrest, a knot tied in its long tail.

  What she knew was this – four of the Mayday Five were dead. Brady, Lynch, Doyle, and Ni Chonnaill, with her soil-stained hair and three orphaned children. Each had been kidnapped on the same day five weeks before, and killed deliberately in ways that echoed the brutal deaths of the bomb victims. The notes slipped into their mouths proved that. Now Jarlath Kenny was gone too, and if the Walshes could be believed, he and the families might have been in on it together – but how would that ever have happened?

  She found she was going over the families in her mind, as if feeling a joint for a weak spot. How to break them, prove that those ordinary people were the ones who had abducted and killed the Mayday Five, left them in scraped-out graves, marked their own pain and loss onto human skin. Maeve was likely to know more than had appeared in her book, but she was still too ill to talk. Later, perhaps the arrival of Maggie might soften the coolness that had appeared between them. Maggie. At the thought of her daughter, Paula’s breasts began to ache. She pulled herself up to a sitting position, cursing her weak body. She didn’t want to be stuck in this room, staring at the rust-coloured ceiling. She wanted to scoop up Maggie and run, go back to the office with the baby strapped to her and work until this tangle of evidence was somehow combed out.

  The door opened, and she lay back down sharply. The nurses were always berating her for not taking convalescence seriously enough. It was PJ.

  ‘Well, pet. I’ve brought you some grapes.’

  Bloody grapes. She’d be able to stock her own fruit and veg stall with that lot.

  ‘What’s wrong? Are you sore?’

  ‘I’m bored out of my mind. Will they let me back to work soon?’

  ‘You had a big operation, Paula. You’re meant to take at least three months off.’

  ‘I know! And now I’m fine. I can’t take three months off. I need to find out what happened.’

  ‘Why?’

  It was an obvious question, but she suddenly couldn’t think of the answer. ‘Well – Flaherty’s still missing. We could find him. And Kenny.’

  PJ seated himself, rustling plastic bags. ‘I doubt if their own mothers would mourn them. They’re scum. Why upset yourself over that bunch?’

  ‘You should understand, of all people. It shouldn’t be like this any more – people can’t just dispense justice however they see fit. We have laws. We shouldn’t have border justice – judge, jury, and executioner in one.’

  PJ looked surprised at her vehemence. ‘Well, no, but it’s happened now. It’s most likely green on green killings – sure the Loyalists were all bumping each other off in the early nineties and no one shed too many tears.’

  ‘It isn’t right.’ She struggled to explain. ‘I don’t want to bring Maggie up somewhere like this. They should have been convicted properly.’

  ‘They tried. Everyone tried. Sometimes justice just isn’t done.’

  ‘I know. It’s just . . . it doesn’t seem right.’ She spotted a national paper sticking out of one of his carrier bags – Catherine Ni Chonnaill’s face was clearly visible on the fold, her eyes staring boldly out. Closed forever now, her children left alone. And that was four bodies now and still no answers from the unit that was supposed to find them alive. She changed the subject. ‘No Pat?’

  ‘She – hmm.’ PJ cleared his throat. ‘She stopped off on the way for a minute. Went to see the wee journalist girl who was hurt.’

  Paula understood. She’d gone to see Aidan. Aidan was in the hospital right now, and not coming to see her. ‘How is she? Maeve?’

  ‘Better, they said. She’s awake now, so they’re going to move her to Dublin. She’ll not be herself for a while yet, though.’

  ‘If you see her . . .’ Paula stopped. She couldn’t think of a word to send to Maeve, or to Aidan. She wondered if their little family would be able to sort themselves out one day.

  ‘You’ll have to let him come sometime,’ said PJ, reading her mind.

  ‘Will I?’ she bridled. ‘I didn’t notice him asking.’

  ‘No. But somebody’s that wean’s father.’ They both looked at Maggie, her face already so utterly her own it was impossible to tell who her parents were.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘He can see her if he wants. But I’m not doing any tests. I’m not even thinking about tests for a while yet. She’s only just got here. Right?’

  ‘Right, right. Whatever you say. Listen, your boss is here to see you. The English fella.’

  Paula lay back on the pillows, wondering how long traumatic early labour and thirty-five stitches meant she was allowed to get her own way. Ages, hopefully.

  Kira

  ‘Look at the picture,’ Liam was saying. ‘Go on, look at her.’

  The man – Brady – was crying. So was one of the other ones – Lynch. Doyle was looking down at his chest. He might not have been awake. Earlier on, there had been some hitting. Kira was standing near the back of the caves. She didn’t know how she’d got there but the stone was cold on her back through her sweatshirt. There were other people there, in the dark – Ann, and Dominic, of course, Lily. It was better not to look too closely – this was something all of them had to do by themselves.

  It would be her turn soon. She didn’t want it to be. She didn’t know what she was going to say. She had Rose’s picture in the pocket of her hoody, the corners curling up in the heat, and she could almost feel her smile burning through the material.

  Liam was still shouting. ‘Look at her, look at my wee sister. You killed her. You murdering scum.’

  The big man wasn’t reacting at all. He just looked right ahead all the time, even if someone lost it and spat on him, or hurt him. The woman didn’t cry either. She looked at them like she was furious, like if she could get her hands out of the ropes she would kill them all. Kira was most afraid of her, she thought.

  Dominic was going over to Liam now, leading him away, the boy shaking and angry and almost crying himself. Bastards, the bastards.

  Ann was sitting at the table, writing everything down, her face just the same as it always was. The place smelled of damp, and blood, and a terrible stink from the bucket they went to the toilet in.

  ‘Who wants to be next?’ Dominic asked, once Liam had slumped off to the side, the noise of his crying filling the place like a whimpering dog.

  Kira pressed herself harder against the wall of the caves. In her pocket, she stroked Rose’s picture, and tried to hear her voice, but there was nothing at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The hospital was a good place to talk secrets. Something about the hush of machines, the slow ebb and flow of life. ‘I haven’t got long,’ she said. ‘I have to feed Maggie.’ Already her breasts were aching, ready for the next feed. As if she’d become nothing but a sophisticated milk delivery system.

  ‘How is she?’ Guy’s awkwardness made her look down at the sheets, their ragged threads, washed over and over to softness.

  ‘She’s fine. I can’t – talk about that yet, OK? Can you just give me time?’

  ‘All right.’ He drank his coffee from a cardboard cup. She was sure he’d bought it for something to do. She just had a glass of tepid water. God, she missed using caffeine as a crutch.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Do you remember what you asked, before you went under? What you said to Saoirse?’

  She nodded. It had come back to her in vague shreds. She recognised the voice he was using. It was his ‘giving bad news to relatives’ one. She had a version of it herself. She clutched the glass, feeling beads of moisture inch down the outside.

  ‘Well, I did some digging like you asked. Strictly off the record.’ He traced a pattern on the side of his coffee, scraping the cardboard sleeve. ‘You know I used to be in the Army.’

  ‘Um – I guessed.’ They’d never really spoken about this but it was obvious in everything he did, even the way he held himself.

  ‘It was only for a few yea
rs. But I have contacts, people who would have worked over here during the Troubles. Army intelligence. So I asked about your mother. If they knew whether anyone ran her as an informer.’

  Paula flinched at the word. ‘She wasn’t an informer!’ A tout. Worst thing you could call a Catholic. That, coupled with her father’s RUC job, would definitely have made her family what they called a legitimate target. It was the phrase they’d found in Catherine Ni Chonnaill’s mouth. She shivered.

  ‘OK, informing is a very loaded word. But, Paula, this was five years before the peace process. There wasn’t some mythical freedom struggle. The IRA had been bleeding Ireland to death for years at that point. You know what I mean. I asked around, to see if anyone knew of her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Paula, are you sure you want to hear all this?’

  She didn’t look up. ‘Tell me. Everything.’

  ‘My contact – he said there’d been rumours your mother was involved with someone at Special Branch in the town.’

  ‘Involved?’

  She could tell from his voice he was blushing. ‘“Carrying on with” was the phrase he used.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So, because of that, and her job at the solicitors, it was believed that Margaret was passing information to Special Branch about terror suspects.’

  That was better. Call her Margaret. Keep her distant, just a name in a file.

  ‘Did they take her?’ she asked, under the gentle hush of the hospital. She wasn’t the first person to hear bad news inside these walls. They could absorb it. ‘Did they know if the IRA took her?’

  Guy hesitated. ‘He wasn’t sure. But it was known that there were plans to kidnap her and her – contact at Special Branch. For interrogation. He didn’t know any more after that – he was moved to Kosovo.’

  Contact. Her lover, that meant. According to Guy’s friend, her mother had been having an affair, passing on secrets from her work to him. Paula tried to fit this in with what she knew of her mother, homely and quiet, and failed utterly.