In the Morning I'll Be Gone

by Adrian McKinty

  “Not too far away, just around the corner on the road down to the lough.”

  “Did you see anyone about?”

  “No.”

  “Nobody at all?”

  “It’s a small village, I’m pretty sure there was no one.”

  “No people or cars?”

  “No.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “We got in the car and drove to Belfast.”

  “No incidents?”

  “No. Lee dropped me first on the Stranmillis Road and then Barry and I assume he went home after that.”

  “What time did you get in at?”

  “I don’t know. Eleven twenty or thereabouts? It’s a pretty quick run in from Antrim.”

  “What did you do next?”

  “I washed up, put the trout in the fridge, got a book, and went to bed.”

  “What book?” Crabbie asked.

  “I have no idea! It was nearly four years ago.”

  “When you were leaving the pub, did you happen to see if Lizzie came behind you to close the door?” I asked.

  He thought about it. “I didn’t notice, sorry. To be honest I was keeping an eye on Lee. I was a little worried about letting him drive us home with three pints of Guinness in him.”

  “Did Lizzie seem agitated or upset that evening?”

  “I didn’t notice anything like that, although apparently her father was in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, so perhaps she was a bit subdued? I don’t really know.”

  “When were you contacted by the police about Lizzie’s death?”

  “I contacted them. I saw a news item about Lizzie’s death and a police spokesman was asking for any witnesses who had been in the bar that night,” he said, a little unsure of himself. He looked at me and then at the floor and then out the window.

  Crabbie had seen it too.

  “That’s not quite what happened, is it, Professor Yeats?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You saw the news item on the TV and you called up Mr. McPhail and Mr. Connor and one or both of them told you to forget it. They told you it was best if you didn’t get involved, didn’t they?”

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “But then, after some soul-searching, you decided to tell the truth, didn’t you?”

  Professor Yeats seemed stunned by this piece of deduction, although it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Well, which one of them was it?” Crabbie asked.

  “It was Lee. He said that he could get in trouble for drunk driving and it was best if we just didn’t mention anything to the police.”

  “But he didn’t convince you, did he?” Crabbie said.

  “At that time we didn’t know her death had been an accident. The police were calling for witnesses to come forward to help them with an unexplained death. It could have been a murder or anything and I felt that we should come forward and tell them what we knew. So I called up Antrim RUC and the detective in charge came to interview me that afternoon. After that he talked to the others. But none of us knew very much. We had a drink, we barely talked to the poor girl. I think Lee chatted to her the most. Her father was in hospital for a knee operation and he was telling her that his dad had had the same operation.”

  “How long were they chatting?” I asked.

  “Not long. Two minutes.”

  “Are you still friends with Mr. McPhail?”

  Yeats looked chagrined. “Not really, not anymore. He thought what I did was something of a betrayal and he more or less froze me out of his life after that.”

  “How did you meet him in the first place?”

  “He went to a talk I was giving on the great Belfast Police Strike of 1909. He asked a few questions and we met up afterward. It turned out we had a mutual interest in labor activism and fishing.”

  “And Barry Connor?”

  “I got to know him through Lee.”

  “Does he still speak to you?”

  “Oh yes. Barry doesn’t hold grudges.”

  I looked at Crabbie to see whether he had anything else. He did. “That night could anyone have slipped into the pub and been hiding, say, in the toilets?” Crabbie asked.

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. I went to the toilet just before we left and I didn’t notice anyone.”

  “Did you look in the stalls?” I asked.

  “No, I just used the urinal.”

  “I suppose you didn’t go in the women’s toilet, by any chance?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Do you have anything else to add, Sergeant McCrabban?” I asked Crabbie.

  He shrugged. “Do you have any more information that you think might be pertinent, Professor Yeats?”

  “Uhh, I don’t think so.”

  I got him to reiterate the timeline but he was consistent so I got up and offered him my card. “Well, thank you so much for your time, Professor Yeats. Here’s my card—if you think of anything else please don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

  He walked us to his office door. “May I ask you a question, Inspector?” he said.

  “Of course.”

  “Why now? I mean, it’s been four years. And this seemed like a simple story. The poor girl fell off a table or something, right?”

  I nodded. “It seems that way, but the coroner returned an open verdict so the case never really closes. If you think of anything give me a call, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Oh, one more thing, did you happen to notice a problem with any of the lights in the pub that night?”

  He sighed. “I don’t remember. Sorry.”

  “Ah well, thank you very much.”

  Crabbie and I walked downstairs.

  “Fancy some lunch while I pick your brain?” I asked him when we’d reached street level.

  “I’d take a wee bite to eat,” he agreed.

  “Good, because I’ve heard about a wee place round the corner that I’ve been meaning to try. Follow me.”

  We walked over to Botanic Avenue and found Le Canard just finishing its lunchtime service. It was a French bistro in the style of the Deux Magots with outside tables, expensive coffees, and snippy waiters. Anywhere else this would have been a cliché but in war-torn Belfast in the summer of 1984 it was a breath of fresh air.

  Getting a table would normally probably be quite difficult, packed as it was with folks from the BBC and the surrounding offices, but our warrant cards did the trick with the maître d’hôtel and he found us a table in the back near the toilets.

  I ordered a glass of red for me and an espresso for Crabbie.

  “Cheers,” I said, taking a sip of the house plonk.

  “Chin chin,” McCrabban said, sipping his coffee.

  The wine was excellent and I ordered another almost immediately.

  “Ever read Roald Dahl?” Crabbie asked.

  “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?”

  “He’s got one. It’s not exactly a locked room mystery but it’s a good one. Do you wanna hear?”

  “Sure.”

  “The police are called to a house where a man has been found by his wife apparently bludgeoned to death. The policeman very gently and sympathetically chats to the bereaved woman and notices the delicious smell of a leg of lamb roasting in the kitchen. The distraught widow begs the detective to partake of a little of the meat, as it was her husband’s favorite meal, etc. And thus the murder weapon (the frozen leg of lamb) is consumed.”

  “Nice. Sort of a variation on the frozen bullet theme . . . But our girl had her neck snapped. It was either an accident or a human being snapped it after he’d knocked her down. I don’t think there’s any trickery about murder weapons in our locked room.”

  “No,” Crabbie said sadly.

  “You wanna talk about the timeline?” I asked cheerfully.

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Lizzie gets a call from her mother Mary at ten thirty. All is well. She kicks out the three
fishing comrades at eleven. All is well. Eleven twenty our new mate Professor Yeats arrives home. At eleven thirty boyfriend Harper calls Mary Fitzpatrick’s house asking to speak to Lizzie. Lizzie isn’t back yet. Mary goes to the pub looking for her, finds that it’s locked up and the lights are off. She comes back to the house, rouses the neighbors, calls the cops. Eleven forty-five or shortly thereafter Harper arrives back from Belfast, worried sick. Antrim peelers show up shortly after that and a second search begins. Midnight, a cop shines his torch through the window of the pub and thinks he sees something lying on the floor. They break the door down and find Lizzie lying there with a busted light bulb in her hand.”

  Crabbie nodded. “That sounds about right. Lizzie dies between eleven and eleven thirty.”

  I took another sip of wine.

  “You think Yeats is telling the truth?”

  “I think so. Why, what are you getting at?”

  “Do you think Yeats or one of his mates came on to Lizzie and there was a scuffle and they accidentally killed her and concocted the accident scheme and hightailed it out of there?”

  Crabbie nodded. “It would take some nerve, wouldn’t it? To get away with it and then offer yourselves up to the police.”

  “That would be the last thing the police would suspect.”

  “And then there’s the barred front and back doors.”

  “One of them hides in the toilet and waits until Lizzie’s body is found and slips out when all the commotion has died down.”

  “He didn’t react when you suggested that.”

  “Could be a good actor. And he’s had three and a half years to prep for this line of questioning.”

  Crabbie shook his head. “It’s way too risky. Nobody would have the bottle to do something like that. Why not just leave? And anyway, your Inspector Beggs did a thorough search of the premises, didn’t he?”

  “So he says.”

  “Do you have a reason not to believe him?”

  “You and I know, Crabbie, that all peelers cover their arses . . . But actually no, he seems like a pretty thorough copper.”

  “So it had to be an accident.”

  “It would appear that way for now.”

  Crabbie sighed. “No offense, Sean, but this case seems like a bit of a waste of time.”

  “That’s the specialty of the RUC.”

  A waiter came to take our order. I found that I wasn’t really hungry after the murderous leg of lamb story, but Crabbie was and he got the pot au feu after I explained what it was.

  I ordered another glass of the house red and when it came I found myself ruminating on what Laura had said to me. After the waiter had gone I leaned over to Crabbie. “Listen, mate, do you think I’m manic depressive? I’m depressive, sure, we’re all depressed, but I’ve seen no evidence of a manic phase, have you? Bad judgment. Some rashness. But not foaming mania, right?”

  The conversation was far outside McCrabban’s comfort zone but he listened to me politely. When he saw a response was called for he put down his glass of water.

  “I think I’d take issue with your premise, Sean. I wouldn’t say everybody’s depressed. I’m not.”

  “Aye, but that’s because you think you’re going to be raptured up to heaven any minute, isn’t it?”

  “You could join me if you would accept Jesus as your personal savior.”

  “I’m sorry I asked now. Anyway, here’s your grub.”

  Crabbie’s food came and when he was done I asked to speak to the chef.

  “The chef is very busy,” the waiter replied with an unctuous smile.

  I showed him my warrant card. “He’ll want to talk to us.”

  As was the wont of many chefs, Barry Connor was a thin, bird-like man who looked as if he survived on water biscuits. He was balding and he had shaved the rest of his brown hair into a buzz cut. He was medium height, with piercing grey eyes.

  He was dressed in some kind of chef’s jacket over a white T-shirt and brown corduroy trousers. He looked extremely nervous.

  “What can I do for you two gentlemen?”

  I gave him our names and told him we were working on the cold case of Lizzie Fitzpatrick.

  “Who’s Lizzie Fitzpatrick?”

  “27 December 1980. She was a barmaid in the Henry Joy McCracken in Antrim. You were among her final customers. She kicked you out at last orders and after that she had a rather mysterious accident that resulted in her death.”

  A little smile of relief showed on his face. We hadn’t come to ask him about the protection money he was shelling out to the Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries. Nor had we come to ask about the dodginess of his books. We’d actually come calling about Lizzie Fitzpatrick . . . Whatever had happened with the three of them and Lizzie it was nothing our mate Barry Connor was too stressed about.

  Unless of course he knew that I’d be thinking that and he was one step ahead.

  That would be diabolical.

  “Let’s talk,” I said.

  “Do you mind if I finish lunch service first? We’re nearly done. Just a couple of tickets left.”

  “Nah, let’s talk now, Barry.”

  He sat down at the side of the table.

  “This is fantastic, by the way,” McCrabban said. “Really hits the spot.”

  “Thank you,” Barry said.

  “How do you know Alan Yeats and Lee McPhail?” I asked him.

  “I met Alan through Lee. Lee and I went to Queen’s together.”

  “Studying?”

  “We were both reading English and Politics. We both wanted to be journalists. He did become a journalist at first, but I . . . I never followed through on it.”

  “How did you get into this cooking racket?” I asked.

  “My mother’s French. These are all her recipes. My mother’s and my grandmother’s.”

  “Your mother’s French, did you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whereabouts in France?”

  “Brittany.”

  “Does she ever sleep with the window open?”

  “What?”

  “Does she ever sleep with the window open at night?”

  “Now you come to mention it . . . I don’t think she does. Why do you ask that?”

  “No reason. All right. So tell me about the night of 27 December 1980 as best as you can remember it.”

  “We’d all gone fishing and done really well and we’d had a bite to eat and Lee told us about this pub he knew. We had a few beers and then we drove back to Belfast. That’s about it.”

  “Did you interact with Lizzie at all?”

  “We all got a round, so we all went up to the bar and gave our order. But that was about it. She didn’t invite conversation.”

  “She wasn’t particularly friendly?”

  “No, she wasn’t hostile, she just seemed as if she had other stuff on her mind. I read later that her father had been in the hospital for an operation . . .”

  “She chatted to Lee, though, didn’t she?”

  “Oh yes. Lee’s very gregarious. He could get a Carthusian nun to have a chinwag with him.”

  “Was he trying to pull her?”

  “Lee’s always trying to pull somebody.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Did it go farther than she wanted? Was there any kind of argy-bargy?” Crabbie asked.

  “No. Nothing like that. Lee tried a few lines on her. She wasn’t interested. End of story.”

  “So you finished your drinks and headed home?”

  “Exactly.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Last orders. Eleven. Possibly slightly before.”

  “And what time did you get back to Belfast?”

  “Lee dropped Alan off at about eleven twenty and me about two minutes after that.”

  “And what time did he get home?”

  “I have no idea. He’s only about five minutes away down the Malone Road so I assume not much longer after he dropped me.”
>
  “When did you first hear about Lizzie’s death?” Crabbie asked.

  “Two days later. Alan called me. He said we had to go to the police about what we knew.”

  “And what did you say to that?”

  “I thought it was a good idea.”

  “And Lee, what did he think?”

  “Uhm, I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” I insisted.

  “Uhm, well, I think it was his opinion that we shouldn’t get involved.”

  “Why?”

  “I think just on general principles. He didn’t think cooperating with the police was a good idea.”

  “But Alan thought otherwise.”

  “Alan was quite insistent . . . anyway, he called the cops and they interviewed us. But the whole thing turned out to be an accident.”

  I rubbed my chin and looked at Crabbie.

  He had nothing.

  “While you were all sitting there having a drink in the Henry Joy McCracken, did you notice if there was a problem with any of the light bulbs in the place?”

  “No. But I don’t think that’s the sort of thing I would have noticed.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Had a good day’s fishing. Three pints of beer. You’re not thinking about light bulbs, are you?”

  I gave Barry my card.

  “If you think of anything else, I’d appreciate a call,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Is that it?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He stood up and smiled.

  “That was pretty painless, wasn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Connor.”

  I finished my wine and when we went to pay we discovered that it was on the house. I didn’t insist.

  We went outside and I lit a cigarette.

  “You know what I think?” Crabbie said.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think Lizzie Fitzpatrick fell off the bar and broke her neck. I think the girl’s father can’t accept the fact that a random act of God killed his little girl. I think he’s pressuring Special Branch to reopen the case and Special Branch are doing it because he’s a big wheel in the Republican movement and nobody wants to piss him off.”

  I tapped McCrabban on the bonce. “You’re not as thick as you look, are you?”

  “Am I right?”

  “And where does Dermot McCann come into your little scheme?”