The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

  ‘London,’ repeated Lorcan Finney, fixing her with his odd eyes. ‘I hear they have all manner of things over there. Have you heard that, DCI Corry?’

  Corry laughed. Paula scowled – so much for solidarity. Corry said, ‘I’ll put in a request to the forensic service. The site will be combed down, and there’s a huge amount of debris about, so it’ll take a few days. But if we can find this other site like you said, Dr Finney, there’s a chance we can recover Flaherty, Lynch, and Ni Chonnaill alive.’

  Finding and saving vicious murderers. No one wanted to say it, but cases like this sometimes made you question what your job was actually for. And who.

  ‘’Scuse us, boss.’ A uniformed officer approached, clearing a space. Paula lumbered back, as past them came two white-suited techs carrying a stretcher. It wasn’t possible to get the ambulance any closer on the muddy ground.

  ‘Oh, they’ve found it,’ said Corry, sounding pleased. The stretcher came closer. On it sat the head of Callum Brady, the hair brown with soil, the eyes clogged with it, the teeth bared in the final agony of death. The neck ended in shredded flesh and veins.

  Paula, automatically and secretively, made a small sign of the cross as the cargo passed them by. She looked up to see Lorcan Finney watching her with an odd expression on his face. He gave her a small nod. Catholic, she found herself thinking, though his name alone could tell her that, and then immediately felt ashamed.

  Kira

  She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t know where the man lived. Of course there must have been one. He’d not touched their lives until that day, when Kira was already eight. But she knew it as if she always had – he lived in that big white house her bus passed on the way from school to Crossanure, out on its own. Of course there were other men too, but everyone knew he was THE man. The important one. The ringleader, it sometimes said on the news, and it made Kira think about a man with an evil smile and a top hat and whip, tigers dancing round him.

  This was back in March. After everything had been decided. After the trial didn’t work for those complicated reasons she couldn’t get straight in her head. It was easy in the end. Sometimes it was as easy as just getting up and doing it. Luckily Charlene wasn’t speaking to her anyway, so she didn’t have to explain too much. She’d got off at an earlier bus stop, with the girls from the Tooley estate. Charlene’s head snapped round, her frizzy curls bouncing. ‘Where’re you going?’

  Kira stuck her nose in the air. Charlene had sat down the back of the bus with Lucy and Sam today. So obviously it would be one of those days when they ignored Kira, laughed those loud laughs and said words she knew were about her. ‘I’m visiting my friend,’ she said coldly, gathering her bags.

  ‘You don’t have any friends,’ sneered Lucy. Kira gave her the look Rose had taught her – one that said, you are like a scummy little beetle under my shoe. Amazingly, Lucy shut up. Kira’s face was burning as she climbed down off the bus, but maybe no one noticed. She stayed fiddling with her bag and PE kit until the Tooley estate girls had walked off. They’d given her some weird looks and weren’t above having a go or making fun of her shoes. Soon the road was quiet. She got out the map she’d drawn herself, using the computer in school, and set off down the country lane.

  It was a nice day. Sun fair splitting the stones, Rose would say, which apparently was something Daddy also used to say way back. Little birds played in and out of the hedge and there was a nice coconutty smell off the gorse. She took off her blazer and rolled up her shirtsleeves as she walked along. She wished she had a drink. Rose used to give her a Capri Sun for the journey home, but Mammy never remembered. It seemed to take a long time to get to the man’s house, but eventually she did. She stared at his gates, which were closed and locked with a big padlock. It was very quiet. She could hear birds, and far away someone cutting their grass. It smelled like the countryside, a bit ripe and rotten, but in a good way. Kira decided to climb over the fence. It was high and jaggedy and she tore a hole in her school skirt, but she made it. Then she picked up her school bag and sneaked round the house.

  It was a really ordinary house. Quite big, but just with plain white walls. No flowers in the garden. There were three cars in the drive, white, black and silver. They looked like expensive cars. Jamesie would know what they were. She wondered would she ever see him again. She crept around the house, peering in the windows. A lot of the rooms seemed empty, with no carpets even or beds. One was a sitting room – sofas with plastic still on them and a massive TV. And the back of the house was a little patio with chairs on it, all dusty since it hadn’t rained in so long. He didn’t use any of this. You could see that. The back of the house was all windows, so you could see right into the nice white kitchen. Kira turned the handle – it opened.

  She wasn’t even scared. She realised she was supposed to go in all along. And Rose was with her, so she’d be safe. Inside felt quiet and a bit cold, like no one lived there. On the counter there was a plate with a crust on it and a paper – the Irish News. They never got that, it was the Catholic paper. It was open at the crossword, half filled in. Kira looked to see could she answer any but knew not to write on it. She wanted to open the cupboards, see what he had for his breakfast, this man. The Bad Man. Her feet made a squeaking noise on the white tiles; she’d left a bit of soil from walking on the grass in the middle of the road. On the fridge was a magnet of Ireland which was holding up a leaflet about bin collections. They had the same one in their house, only it hadn’t been pinned up; it was in a big pile of papers Mammy never went through. Kira knew because she’d started looking in it for important things. Bills. Hospital appointments. The letters from the counsellor woman.

  She ran her hands over the counter. It was marble and it felt cold. She was just wondering what she was meant to do when she felt the air sort of move and her hair all stood up and her stomach went ‘blurp’.

  ‘Who might you be?’ said the man, standing in the doorway to the hall.

  Chapter Eight

  Paula entered the small church hall, with the same smell they all had, lino and dust. Old Christmas decorations sagged from the walls with posters for singing classes, am dram, dog obedience. But this was nothing so benign. This was a meeting of the Mayday Victims Support Group. Everyone in the dim room, lit by cobwebbed fluorescent bulbs, they’d lost someone that day, or they’d been hurt themselves. That was the thing about a bomb. It didn’t just tear through buildings, reducing them to rubble and ash, and it didn’t just tear through people, so bloody parts ended up yards from their owners, so the teeth of one victim might be found embedded in the leg of another. It tore through lives, leaving everything a mess, a heap of ruins, a raging fire.

  She inched along the wall awkwardly, very aware that her body was ripe with life. It seemed almost an obscenity, when so many people had lost their children on that day. It seemed wrong to be so whole. She’d have liked some way to tell them she wasn’t whole at all, she had her own wounds. You just couldn’t see them.

  A young woman was putting plates on a table, on which sat bottles of squash and packets of Jaffa Cakes. She had salon-shiny hair, and nice suede boots. Then she turned slightly and Paula saw she had only one eye. It was a pretty turquoise blue, and on the other side was a patch. She recognised her. This was Lily Sloane, who’d been practically blinded by glass shards when she was eighteen. It made Paula’s chest ache to see the girl, how she’d grown her fringe over the damaged side of her face, but she put on a smile. ‘Hello, sorry to interrupt you all. I’m with the MPRU – they said I should come on down today?’

  The girl put down the plate and flicked at her fringe. ‘Oh right. I’ll get Dominic. I’m Lily.’

  I know, Paula almost said. ‘Nice to meet you.’ She knew who Dominic was too. An angry, energetic man in his late thirties, he was the father of Amber Martin, the toddler who’d been killed that day. Paula thought she’d also heard that the Martins’ marriage had not survived losing their only child. There was no si
gn of John Lenehan. Dominic Martin was up on stage behind the shabby green curtains, talking to a man who looked like the caretaker. Lily approached him, walking with the easy grace of a twenty-three-year-old. Briefly, he looked at Paula, then carried on talking to the man.

  ‘Sit down,’ Lily called back. ‘We’ll add you to the agenda.’ Paula obeyed, sitting heavily on a plastic chair. She let out an involuntary sigh as she eased into it – standing was getting harder every day. More people had arrived, and it was difficult not to match them up with what she knew of the victims. There were people of all ages – men, women, older, younger, even a teenage girl who slipped in near the end and sat behind Paula with her feet up, where she could see her from the corner of her eye.

  ‘I don’t know you,’ the girl said suddenly, over the hubbub of getting ready. Dominic and a woman of about sixty were seated at a trestle table in front, with one chair empty. The others sat in rows of chairs, a steady murmur of talk going up. Paula felt all eyes were on her.

  ‘No,’ said Paula, startled. ‘I’m with the police. You know . . . I’m here about the missing people.’ Would the girl know about such things, or was she too young?

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, sounding largely uninterested. ‘We don’t talk about them much. Not here. This is a space to keep them out, John says.’

  ‘Well – I’ll be respectful, I promise.’

  Dominic had stood up. ‘I hope everyone is keeping well? I think we’ll start.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Paula quickly asked the girl, on impulse.

  Nothing for a few moments, then, very quietly – ‘Kira.’

  She hadn’t time to say her own, but anyway Dominic was looking at her. ‘Welcome, everyone. You’ll notice we have a visitor today.’ He managed to make ‘visitor’ sound like ‘sinister interloper’. ‘Dr Paula Maguire is here from the missing persons unit in Ballyterrin. We’ve been asked to talk to them. She’ll update us on a few things.’

  She waved. ‘I’d get up, but I’m not sure I can.’ A few people smiled, as she’d hoped they would, but Dominic and the woman to his left remained stony-faced.

  Dominic went on. ‘First bit of business is that John has sadly decided to step down as Chair due to ill health. I’m sure you’ll all join me in thanking him for his years of service. Before the next AGM I’ll act as Chair, with Ann carrying on as secretary.’ Another murmur went up, which Dominic seemed to ignore. Ann was presumably the grim-faced woman – who was she? A mother, a daughter, a wife? Ann coughed and read out the minutes in a dry local accent. Paula tried not to tune out. She’d never been any good on committees – indeed, as a doctoral student, had been kicked off the organising team for their graduation ball after she’d stood up and shouted ‘I don’t give a fuck about rocket!’ during a two-hour debate about menu choices.

  It was a succession of minutiae: discussions over the memorial, a reminder to pay subs for tea and biscuits, lengthy updates about the failed court case. Only one thing stood out. In the same voice she’d used for the rest, Ann said, ‘A vote was taken on options for proceeding in the light of the failed court case. There were three against, five for, and the rest abstentions. Minutes by Ann Ward,’ she finished, and Paula could place her. Out with her family that day, she’d lost her husband Patrick, and the six-week-old grandson he’d been wheeling in a pram, also Patrick.

  ‘Any matters arising?’ asked Dominic.

  No one spoke for a moment. Then a man cleared his throat. ‘I think there’s a few issues to go over, Dominic. What with everything that’s happened . . . you know.’ Paula was sure he was looking at her. She tried to keep her eyes on the floor.

  ‘There’s plenty of time on the agenda for any issues arising,’ said Dominic easily. ‘Now. Let’s start with remembering.’ He shut his eyes and everyone did the same. ‘Amber Martin,’ he said tonelessly. ‘My daughter.’

  Then Ann cleared her throat. ‘Patrick Ward, my husband. Patrick Ward Junior. My grandson.’ Her voice didn’t change from that in which she’d read out the minutes.

  The litany moved around the room, as if they did this every meeting, a well-practised round. Two middle-aged men seemed to have come together. One said, ‘Rita Smith, my wife.’ The other, ‘Colette Cole, my wife.’ Paula remembered them – the two women had been friends, although from different sides of the divide, and were out collecting money for Guide Dogs when they were killed.

  ‘Siofra Connolly,’ said a woman in her early thirties. ‘My little sister.’

  ‘My sister too,’ said the man with her, a bit younger, dressed in paint-stained clothes, as if he’d come from a building site. Siofra was one of the teenagers killed, along with her French exchange partner. Lily had been a friend of theirs – the girls were hit when the windows of the bank exploded.

  ‘Tom Kennedy,’ said a woman in her forties. There was something in her voice, a defiance. ‘My husband.’ Something went round the room at that, barely perceptible, the shadow of a murmur.

  ‘Penny Garston,’ said a middle-aged woman who’d brought knitting. ‘My mother.’ That was the oldest lady who’d died, the devout Catholic with thirty grandchildren. Her funeral had been so big they’d had to put up a marquee.

  ‘Daniel Jones,’ muttered an old, old man at the front, hunched over his walking stick. ‘Grandfather – I mean, he’s my grandson.’

  Daniel, who’d been ten when he died, wearing the strip of his favourite team, Arsenal. Paula found it was all coming back to her, the horrific roll call of the dead.

  The teenage girl at the back was last. She stood up, which no one else had done, and cleared her throat, raising her chin. ‘I’m here for Rose Woods. She was . . . mine.’

  There was a short pause. Dominic read, ‘We also remember Danny Lenehan, Monique Leclerc, Sergeant Andrew Patterson, Lisa McShane –’ again, the odd murmur went round – ‘Idris Adebayin, and Constable Raymond Sheeran.’

  Those who’d been born overseas, out of this crucible, but brought to the town that day by steps of malign fate. The Sheerans she knew didn’t get involved. And Lisa McShane – Paula wondered why no one had come for her.

  He left a pause. ‘Now. I think we’ll pass over to Dr Maguire to explain why she’s here.’ His eyes settled on her, cold, and she realised he’d done that litany for her benefit. Remember what we’ve been through.

  She felt she’d better stand up, so she lumbered to her feet, one hand on her back. Funny how the body knew these things, knew how to stand like a pregnant woman. ‘I know it’s difficult and we’re very keen that the families are treated with respect . . . eh.’ She faltered. ‘Why I’m here is that the members of the so-called Mayday Five have gone missing. I’m sure you’ve all seen this.’

  There was no response, and she had a sudden moment of panic – what could she say to these people, who’d lost so much? Would they be able to see she’d lost someone too? She soldiered on. ‘One of the Five, Mickey Doyle, has now been found dead. And this hasn’t been announced, but we believe we found the body of another of them this morning. The injuries are quite severe.’ She waited, but there was no reaction. ‘Um . . . we think the other three may be captive somewhere, and so – we’d like to ask people to come to us, if they know anything, anything at all, about where they might be. We’re attempting to be respectful, but we do also have to look at who would have wanted the Five gone. I’m afraid we may need to interview some of you, establish alibis and so on.’ Silence. She took a breath. ‘So – you can speak to me, in confidence, if you need to. I’m not a police officer, I’m a psychologist, and we have oaths of confidentiality. That’s all.’ More silence. She sat down more heavily than she’d intended, making a slapping noise on the chair.

  ‘Let me just check – was it Dr Maguire?’ said Ann Ward, writing.

  ‘Yes, um, not medical, obviously.’

  ‘I see. Are you asking us to help find these people? You think we know where they are?’

  ‘I’m asking you to help us unravel what happened. It’s st
ill possible the other members of the group have skipped the country, trying to evade justice. We just want to know where they’ve gone. We have to . . . check with everyone. Just in case.’

  ‘Justice.’ Dominic repeated the word. ‘It’s a weighted word in here, Doctor. What justice has there ever been for us? My Amber had barely learned to walk when they blew her to bits. She wasn’t even two years old. What justice did she get?’

  Paula swallowed. ‘Yes. We do understand that.’

  ‘You understand it.’

  Bad word to choose. ‘We’re . . . mindful of the situation. But we do also have to try to find people, if they’ve been reported missing. We still have a job to do.’

  There was more silence. Dominic Martin continued to watch her. His eyes were green, and held so much pain and rage Paula had to look away. ‘We’d be very grateful for any insights you could give us,’ she said. ‘Thank you for your time.’ There was a silence. She realised she should go. Dominic began talking about costs for the memorial, which would be unveiled in a few weeks’ time, on the fifth anniversary of the bomb.

  Behind her, the teenage girl leaned forward so her voice sounded low by Paula’s ear. ‘Meet me outside, miss.’ And she slipped out of the room on quiet feet. After a moment, Paula bumbled to the door, bumping chairs with her belly and trailing cardigans and bags, then on shutting the door behind her she waddled away as quickly as she could in case they started talking about her. It had been a bad idea to go there. Of course these people weren’t going to help, even if they did know anything.

  ‘Missus?’

  She turned to see the teenage girl standing on one leg. ‘Oh hello. Kira, isn’t it?’

  ‘Kira Woods.’

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry about your sister.’

  The girl swished her ponytail at that, like an irritated horse. Paula should have known better. Why be sorry when you had nothing to do with it? Kira was dressed in the uniform of the local Protestant school, navy blue with a short skirt and white knee socks. Her blazer was studded with pin badges and she had fluorescent green marker on her hands. ‘I’m sorry if I upset people,’ Paula said. ‘I just had to ask. It’s my job.’