In This Bright Future

by Peter Grainger

  ‘It’s thirty years this June, isn’t it? This very month. It’s an anniversary of sorts. My Uncle Bradey and Aunt Lia, they’re still close to my ma, and the three of them have been talking this year about that, the thirty years. It’s a lifetime, isn’t it? It’s my lifetime, more or less. So they’ve been talking and I’ve been listening, piecing together what I could. Whenever they get onto the subject, your name comes up – or one of them does.’

  ‘Was it your uncle Bradey who sent you?’

  ‘No! If he knew where you were, I think he would have come himself! Nobody sent me, you understand. Nobody knows I’m here. They know I’m in England, that’s all, consulting with an old client. My girl Mairead is about to twig that I’m fibbing unless I send her a message today saying that I’m on the way back. I’d rather not be lying to her. There’s been enough of that, hasn’t there?’

  He had looked meaningfully at Smith then, and Smith had nodded briefly his understanding of it. If there was to be more self-recrimination to come, then so be it, but the time was not now, not with this earnest young man in front of him.

  He had said then, ‘Well, you had better be getting back to this Mairead of yours – I’ve no doubt the tempers of Irish girls haven’t changed that much since I was there. Which I was, you’ve realised that already without me having to say so. But I will say that I liked that family very much. Whatever you’ve been told about me and the way things turned out, that’s the truth. What I’m going to say next is also the truth, though I have no means of proving it. When I left Belfast, I did so with about two hours’ notice – in fact, I was out of the country in three. I never went back and I never made contact with anyone that I had known in those times. That was not so easy for me either. On the evening of the day before I left, I saw and spoke to Brann, and he seemed fine. Everything was normal. Until this conversation, I had no idea that he had gone, and I have no idea what happened to him.’

  Kelly said, ‘You know what they call them, don’t you.’

  ‘Yes, I do. The Disappeared.’

  ‘Aye, that’s it. A nice, neutral sort of word, isn’t it, not so much blame attached to it. Just gone. The British government says there are fewer than twenty now – but it’s scores and scores still, that’s the truth of it.’

  Smith nodded.

  ‘I can believe that. I hope you can believe that I had no idea Brann was among them. And I’m very sorry that he is.’

  There was little anger in the younger man now. He had talked warmly about his family and that had mellowed it into evident disappointment that Smith would be able to tell him nothing; on the other hand, he understood that there were things that he had not been told about what exactly the Englishman had done in that summer of thirty years ago.

  Kelly said, ‘You say you’ve never been contacted? Because there is a group that tries to find these people – literally tries to find them, wherever they are. It’s not for revenge, just to give them a Christian burial. To say a proper goodbye, that’s all my mother wants from this. She contacted them a year or so ago, gave them everything she had, and I just wondered whether they ever found you.’

  ‘No. The other sort of people did, many years ago. As you can see, they missed. I didn’t expect to hear any more about those times. Not that you forget them – don’t think that. People got hurt in many ways.’

  ‘Some more than others, though.’

  ‘Yes. Inevitably.’

  They could debate that, of course, but by now Smith’s mind was already tidying up details – at that point he could not have said whether it was doing so in order to file this all away or to prepare a plan of action.

  He said, ‘Can I clear up one thing? It was you that sent the empty envelope a few weeks ago?’

  ‘Yes. A bit amateurish on reflection, for a man like you.’

  ‘What would you have done if I’d sent it back marked ‘Not Known At This Address’?’

  Kelly thought it over before he answered.

  ‘I think I’d have come anyway, just to see for myself.’

  ‘Yes. So would I.’

  They seemed to have reached the end of something. Kelly made ready to stand up, and Smith half-raised a hand to stop him.

  Smith said, ‘I’m sorry that I couldn’t be of some help at least. Obviously I’m going to think this over again in view of what you’ve told me. If I recall anything or realise that something might be useful to you, I could ring you - if you want to leave me a number.’

  Instead, Diarmuid Kelly had given him a business card that included his personal mobile, email address and website details – as if to say, this is me, I’m for real, not hiding anything at all. ‘Diarmuid Kelly’ followed by some letters that Smith did not recognise, and then the phrase ‘Original Software Solutions’. Unfussy, almost minimalist, but the card itself was thick, almost chunky, and not cheap.

  Sitting at the patio table, Smith took it out again and examined it as he thought over the events of the day so far. A bolt out of the blue hardly covered it – Barran O’Neill dead and gone; Brann O’Neill among The Disappeared; Catriona O’Neill’s son sitting in his lounge. A decent young man by the look of it, one who had in the end taken Smith’s word that he had known nothing of what took place in the city after he left it that night. He thought about it again, remembering the dates and then realising that the thirtieth anniversary was not just this month as Diarmuid Kelly had said – it was thirty years to the day in just three days’ time.

  A decent young man who had taken his word… But things are better there now, aren’t they? You see the stories on the news about the investment, the rebuilding, the success of the power-sharing agreement. Better surely to leave it that way, better not to let the past come out of its grave and haunt yet another generation. And then, for the first time, he allowed himself to think about her, not as a sister or a mother but as she was then on a night in Rourke’s bar when he had sung along to a song that he did not know, ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’, and he had kissed her and she had stolen his heart away.

  She would be fifty two now. He tried to imagine her but could see only Rosa O’Neill’s face. Rosa O’Neill who was not doing so well now, who needed a little looking after. Brann had been the favourite son, the favourite brother – any of them would have told you that with a laugh and a smile. Quick-witted, funny and friendly, he had been the one that Smith had met first, the one who had introduced him to the rest of them. And now, after thirty years of suffering, of thinking about him every day and yet never seeing him again, the women needed to say a proper goodbye. That’s why Diarmuid Kelly had come to find him, and when he thought about it, as he was now, the pain seemed worse than he might have had from some anonymous gunman’s bullet.

  Strange how the images of those times become the imagery of one’s thoughts about them forever after. To tell them what Tommy Blake had said to him that final night would be like handing them a live grenade, and he could not do it. If Brann O’Neill lay cold in a field in County Meath or some such place, there had to be another way to find him.

  Chapter Three

  He knew where the metal box was but took a while to find the key to it – and it took a while too to climb the ladder into the attic. The knee would already bend to forty five degrees with little pain – better than the surgeon had suggested so soon as this – but after that it certainly made its objections known, and so he went up slowly, using the left leg and his arms to do all of the work, the right one trailing behind. Then he sat on the edge of the trap-door space and switched on the light.

  Around him lay the organised flotsam of half a lifetime, in bags, boxes and old suitcases. Many of Sheila’s things were here still, and he felt a pang of guilt that the purpose for which he had climbed into this place that once belonged to them both had nothing to do with her. It was months since he had been up here, and he made a silent apology before clambering over the first cross-beam and making his way to the furthest and darkest recess of the roof-space. The box lay hidde
n behind the water tank.

  There was a little resistance in the lock that had not been turned in what must be almost a decade, as if it too was reluctant to go back to those places and times. Or maybe it was only rust – he forced the issue and the lock gave with a grating click. On the top lay a hand-written inventory of the contents but he did not need to read it; if asked he could have named exactly what the box contained. Without thinking, his fingers went first to the ammunition clip. It could hold thirteen rounds when full but contained only one. Thirty years ago he had filed a report explaining what had happened to the others, the circumstances under which they had been fired through the Browning HP pistol, long since gone, but that didn’t matter any more. Instead he looked at the final bullet and thought about the man for whom it had been intended if things had turned out differently.

  The papers for his third identity were all still there, and theoretically still usable; birth certificates, national insurance details, a driving licence, bank accounts, passports, a thick bundle of twenty pound notes in an envelope, – everything that one might need to move quickly into a place of greater safety, with a matching set for Sheila. He had asked for that ten years ago when it was all updated for the final time, and she had treated the entire exercise with amused contempt, saying that he must have a very high opinion of himself if he thought anyone was still interested in him after all these years – except for herself, of course. But he had asked for the replacements anyway and locked them away in this box, never showing them to her.

  Twisting around, he managed to lift one old suitcase onto another and then, using that as a seat, he went through the contents of the box item by item. It wasn’t all usable after all. The passport was still in date, just, but the driving licence was not. No matter – the surgeon had told him that one of things he would not be able to do, perhaps for weeks, was to drive. Emergency stops, they were the problem; trying to put the foot down hard and suddenly so soon after a knee operation was liable to cause an accident. Smith considered it all and allowed himself a brief smile. He never would have taken his own car but hiring one had been a thought – he could dismiss that idea now.

  The passport would give him enough cover to rent a room for a night or two, if anyone asked, as long as he did not use a bankcard to pay. Once he had been seen by anyone who recognised or remembered him, of course, things might unravel quickly but he had no intention of being there for long, and if his accommodation at least was under another name, it would be more difficult for anyone to find him. Christopher Colgate. Who made these things up? Had they used a tube of toothpaste for inspiration?

  He kept the passport and four hundred pounds of the cash. Everything else went back into the box where it belonged, and the box was returned to its dark corner. Above his head, drumming on the roof-tiles, another shower of rain passed over but this should be the last day of that before things began to improve – they were in for a fine spell or so the forecast had said. He needed to check that it would be the same across the water, though, before he packed any clothing… Detail, Smith, detail – that’s what they had hammered into him before he ever set foot in the place and now here he was preparing to go back there. When he got out of bed this morning, nothing had been further from his mind, except perhaps to wonder how Detective Superintendent Allen was going to manage without him for the next fortnight.

  When his mobile began to ring, he reached for it in his pocket before realising that he had left it on the bedroom windowsill. Then, stupidly, he went to half-crawl, half-stoop along the boards of the attic floor, as if he could reach it in time, forgetting the knee and getting a sharp reminder three seconds later. He sat back, straightened it, and with his eyes closed he waited for the pain to subside. This could wait, couldn’t it? He could go next week, if he had to go at all, surely… But those three days, that anniversary, troubled him. He wasn’t a superstitious man but the timing of all this seemed to mean something – that Diarmuid Kelly, her son, should find him now, just three days before it, somehow demanded his presence there where it all took place. Like those old veterans, fewer in number each year, who make their way back to the killing fields of Belgium and France for the 11th of November, come what may.

  The phone rang nine more times before the only sound he could hear once more was the rain drumming on the roof above his head.

  ‘Yes, you rang. What do you want?’

  ‘Good morning, DC. I just phoned to see how you are. Are you still in bed?’

  Detective Constable Christopher Waters seemed to find that idea amusing. Not so long ago, the gruffness still used to work most of the time but no longer, and so Smith gave it up in favour of lying.

  ‘Yes, I am. At least a month they reckon before I can get down the stairs.’

  ‘Really? I spoke to John earlier and he said you were doing pretty well yesterday when he picked you up. What happened?’

  ‘Ah, yes. But I was still under the effects of the anaesthetic then – it comes on pretty suddenly once that’s worn off.’

  Waters was thinking about what was to be done, and Smith smiled to himself as he walked from the kitchen into the lounge – at least he was using the stick as he had been told.

  ‘How will you manage? Do you need any help?’

  ‘Well, Mr Constant, my surgeon, said that he hoped I had family and friends that could support me for a few weeks. Of course, my family are all miles away…’

  ‘Help out how?’

  ‘Oh, just assist with a few things. You know, washing and that… Personal hygiene.’

  He could picture the growing look of horror on the boy’s face and his smile widened a little.

  ‘Right, well… I could organise something. Er – do you want me to have a word with DS Reeve? Does she know the situation?’

  ‘No, I didn’t want to bother her. She’s a busy woman. It would only be for a few days until the nurse arrives.’

  ‘Bloody hell, DC. You’ve got to have a nurse?’

  ‘Well, it’s what they advise. They’ve given me a catalogue – it’s what I’m doing now, lying in bed and choosing one.’

  ‘It’s a private nurse, then?’

  ‘Yes, very. You wouldn’t believe how complete the service is for two hundred pounds a day.’

  The penny was slowly dropping but he still heard Waters repeat ‘Two hundred pounds’ as it did so.

  ‘Yes. I’m thinking of going for one of the Swedish models. They’re a bit like Volvos – looks that are timelessly stylish with total reliability but not cheap.’

  ‘Very good, DC.’

  ‘I can only apologise. I asked for a sense of humour transplant while I was under but there’s a long waiting list. What’s happening at the ranch?’

  Not much but it had only been a few days. A trial date had at last been set for the killers of James Bell. Stuart Aves had not altered his plea which meant that there was still no hope of building a case against Donald McFarlane; it also meant that the defence lawyers of Aves and Philip Wood would be antagonistic towards each other rather than cooperative – that might produce something yet as the date for the trial approached. They should keep an eye on that, Smith said, but according to Waters Kings Lake Central was still focusing on the drugs issue. In the afterglow of the seizure of cocaine that had brought them national headlines, Detective Superintendent Allen had made various promises to the citizens of the city, and now the detectives and constables of the force were being kept busy implementing them. Only yesterday a second small cannabis factory had been discovered in the boiler room of Nelson Mandela house, one of the five tower blocks – which Smith thought was a commendable enough use of waste heat to deserve a green energy subsidy – and Allen had immediately called another press conference. Apparently only two members of that august profession turned up, one of them being the gardening correspondent of the Lake Chronicle who had misunderstood the email. Smith estimated that this could all go on for another month at least, and so it was not the worst of times to be having a fort
night off.

  After all that, Waters said, ‘I’ve got some personal news, though, DC.’

  Dear God, let it not involve Katherine Diver – I’ve only been away for three days.

  ‘Right. What is it?’

  ‘I received the letter this morning. I’m officially on the staff. DI Reeve told me that it’s mainly down to what you wrote, so I wanted to thank you.’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Thank you, DC.’

  ‘No problem – that’s what they say these days, isn’t it? I’ve no doubt it will be a problem before long. I’ve no doubt I’ve probably committed professional suicide.’

  ‘She’s putting me in your team as well.’

  ‘You see? I’m being punished already. What about your dad? I take it you’ve let him know.’

  ‘Yes, he’s happy. He says he’s glad you didn’t take up that job offer now. He says the greatest challenges of your career now lie ahead of you.’

  ‘I fear he might be right, but well done anyway. If ever I need someone to tackle a lady PI to the ground, you’re the man I want by my side.’

  He had mentioned her, almost by name, without intending to at all but nothing else was said – was that good or bad? Smith moved quickly on, asking whom his team’s temporary sergeant was, having already guessed that it would be Wilson. It was, and that was Reeve making a point again, building bridges even if neither side of the river particularly wanted to keep in touch with the other. Though he had to admit, after the four of them took on the Albanians at Honeyhill Farm, the seed of mutual respect that had been planted had managed to put out its first green shoot; Wilson might lack a lot of things as a policeman but courage wasn’t one of them.