The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Do you want to see the graveyard?’

  Paula was bone-tired and embarrassed enough for one day, but the girl had left the meeting for a reason, and so she said, ‘Sure. Thank you.’ And the two walked round to the graveyard behind the church hall. Kira moved with a kind of lilting skip, and Paula wondered how old she was, then decided just to ask. Thirteen, was the answer.

  ‘So we you were eight when . . .’

  ‘Yeah.’ She swung the gate into the graveyard, riding on it for a few moments like a kid. ‘There’s a memorial there, look. There’s a couple, you see, in the different churches. We wanted to put up a proper one – they’re always on about it, money and planning and I dunno. They’re going to open it in town on the anniversary. Not open. What’s the word?’

  ‘Unveil?’

  ‘Yeah. They’re going to unveil it. They’ve been making it for ages.’

  ‘Do you go to every meeting?’ They were crunching along a raked gravel path.

  ‘Yeah. Rose would want me to. She says it’s really important not to let people down once you’ve joined something. Like Girl Guides and that.’

  The use of the present tense was jarring, for a sister who’d been dead for five years. ‘I see. Is it the same people every time?’

  ‘Nuh-uh. At first people came from foreign. That French girl – her parents were here one time. They cried a lot. And there was a black lady came from London – I think he was her brother, the man who died in the petrol station. Idris. She had this really cool turban thing.’ Kira was hopping along the sides of the graves, as if on a gymnastics beam. ‘That soldier too, he had a da who came from Liverpool, but then I think he died.’

  ‘Oh. And everyone local, does someone come for them?’

  ‘They’re supposed to. No one comes for Lisa, and the Sheerans, they don’t like to mix cos of their religion.’

  ‘Lisa McShane?’

  ‘Yeah. People say she was like, having an affair. You know Tom Kennedy? He was Methodist. She was Catholic and they worked together, and they were both in his car that day, you see, parked behind the garage. I think they like got trapped in the fire. They weren’t meant to be there. People only found out when they got their bodies out.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘Her family sort of like disowned her, I think. She has three wee kids and everyone says her husband won’t talk about her any more. Supposed to be after she died he found all these texts on her phone from him – Tom.’

  ‘I see.’ Paula was walking very slowly, the baby pressing on her. It was a beautiful evening, the light soft and warm, the kind she remembered from her childhood, staying out late, playing in the street. ‘And you, Kira – you were there too that day? Were you hurt?’

  In response she shoved up the sleeves of her blazer, revealing arms pockmarked with scars, and long, livid burns, silvered. ‘And here, see?’ She lifted her lank fair hair to reveal more burns all round her neck. ‘We got caught near the garage,’ she explained. ‘They fixed me up a bit. Lucky I wasn’t as pretty as Lily. She even got spotted by a model scout one time, in Belfast. But that was before. This is it.’

  They paused before a granite stone, just as Paula was sinking under the weight of stories, of loss. It was a simple grey stone, marked with a list of names, and above them a dove etched in white. Kira traced it with a bitten finger. ‘Some people don’t like him cos it’s a sign of peace, and they don’t think we should be peaceful. But we lost the case, so, what can we do?’ She shrugged.

  ‘There were arguments in the group?’ Paula asked. ‘You know, about how to deal with it?’

  ‘Oh yeah. The McShanes won’t join at all, like I was saying, and the Sheerans, they’re sort of Free Presbyterian.’ She said it matter of factly. ‘They think Catholics did the bomb so they hate John being Chair.’

  ‘John Lenehan.’

  ‘Yeah. He leads us. He’s a Catholic, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but – where was he tonight? He’s stepped down, has he? Did you know that was going to happen?’

  Kira shrugged again. ‘Dunno. He’s like really old.’

  They stood looking for a while, trying to absorb the names and the life behind each. We will not forget, said the inscription. Paula got the feeling that could be construed as a threat. She hoked about in her shoulder bag.

  ‘Listen, would you like to give me your number, Kira? I’ll text you mine, and then you can call me any time you need to, OK? If you have any questions or that about the investigation.’ It bit deep. The girl was the same age Paula had been when her mother went, similarly lost, grief-stricken.

  Kira took the proffered pen and scrawled a number on Paula’s notebook. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘I’m sorry this is so hard. We do understand, OK? We just have to do this.’

  Kira stared at her feet in their sensible shoes. ‘They’re bad people.’

  ‘They were acquitted, though. That means we can’t treat them like criminals.’

  ‘But they did it! Everyone knows they did it!’

  She didn’t know what to say to that. ‘I’m sorry. This is just the way it has to be.’

  Finally Kira lifted her eyes – the same blazing blue Paula recognised from the photos of her sister, but burning with rage, with the injustice of it all, and Paula heard the words as clearly as if she’d said them: No, it isn’t.

  ‘You can get in touch if you need something,’ she said again, weakly. ‘If there’s anything I can do.’ Except, of course, there wasn’t.

  Paula thanked Kira for showing her round, and the girl shrugged it off, refusing a lift and heading off down the street, trailing her hand over the railing of the park, her large school bag weighing her down. She was an odd one, a strange mixture of childish impatience and adult understanding. Paula looked back to the hall, where the meeting was still in progress. She could hear raised voices within, as if some intense debate were in progress, but she knew she couldn’t go back there. She cringed as she thought of the reception they’d given her. But what could they do? The Mayday Five were people too, and had to be looked for, no matter what they’d done.

  She thought about it some more, wondered what it was that had bothered her about the meeting. And it was this – no one had seemed remotely surprised, even though she was there telling them about kidnap and torture and murder. Not even a flicker. She tried to suppress the worry. She couldn’t face bringing even more pain into these people’s lives. She’d seen the look in Dominic Martin’s eyes. That man had identified the body of his daughter on three separate stretchers, she’d been so badly injured. His wife had gone. Everything had gone. But all the same she couldn’t link them, this motley crew of grandmas and kids with their squash in plastic cups, with the simultaneous kidnap of five hardened terrorists. How would they ever have pulled it off? No. She couldn’t see it. She refused to.

  Feeling her stomach stretched tight and aching, Paula went back to the car and headed home to the cold, empty terrace, taking her ghosts with her.

  Extract from The Blood Price: The Mayday

  Bombing and its Aftermath, by Maeve Cooley

  (Tairise Press, 2011)

  I initially contacted Niall McShane as part of my research for this book. I was hoping to get as many perspectives as possible on that day, though I didn’t expect many families would want to talk. In the end most did, apart from those who are overseas or who didn’t comment publicly at all. It was a way of bearing witness for some, and ensuring their loved one was not forgotten. Mr McShane said no to begin with, which was to be expected given the rumours surrounding his wife’s death (Lisa McShane died in the car of her colleague, Tom Kennedy, which was parked behind the garage when it exploded). But some time later he contacted me requesting an interview – what follows is the transcript.

  I met Lisa, my wife, in 1999. The first thing I noticed about her was her eyes – she’d the strangest colour eyes. I never saw anything like them before or since. She was pregnant soon after and we got married. We u
sed to joke I only had to look at her and she’d be expecting. Lisa’d no family, she was adopted as a wean, so she wanted loads of her own. We had three in five years. When she died they were six, four, and one. Money wasn’t good, and we were fighting a bit, and she was fed up doing all the housework and minding the kids. So she got a wee job in an office doing the filing and that. They sold building supplies. They liked her, I think – she was good at chatting to the ould fellas and that. She seemed happy.

  I did wonder the odd time if there was someone else. She’d get a call at home and she’d look a bit funny, but she’d just say it was work. And she’d hide her phone all the time when I walked in. Then once she’d to go to a conference overnight and we had a fight. I didn’t see what conference was so important she had to leave me with the weans. She only did admin, for God’s sake. But it’s hard to say if I knew or I just remembered it all after. Anyway, that day she was so jumpy, picking fights, shouting at the kids. She said we needed groceries and I said I’d go later, I’d to call into work anyway. She was raging, saying she’d go, I never let her set foot out the door. I didn’t think that was right and we had words. The last time I saw her she was getting into the car and sending a text. I was standing in the window with Sinead – our youngest – trying to get her to stop crying. I remember thinking that when Lisa came back I’d try to talk to her. I’d put the washing on and that might cheer her up.

  I’m sure you know all about that day. I waited for ages – I didn’t put the TV on, I was too busy round the house– then my ma rang to say there’d been a bomb and was I OK? I said I hadn’t gone into town, but Lisa had, and no she wasn’t back. I waited with the kids. I thought maybe there’d be roadblocks or something holding her up. The kids knew something – they were in wicked form. Then the mammy came round and I went to the hospital. We didn’t say anything. I think we knew.

  At the hospital it was chaos, every corridor full and people going about shouting names and crying. There was blood all over the floor, and people had stepped in it. You could see all these footprints down the middle, and you could see even the doctors and nurses were scared. You could see it in their eyes. I didn’t shout for Lisa. I just kept asking people and they’d look at lists and then they sent me to a wee tent out back. There were all folding chairs and people sitting about looking like the world had ended. I waited. It was the worst moment of my life until then, but even so I didn’t want it to end, because then I’d have to know for sure. In the end it was dark and everyone was still there. They came out and said, Mrs Kennedy? That was your woman, the wife, you know. Anna, I think you call her. And she got up. Then they sort of looked at me too. It was a wee girl with a clipboard. Are you Mr McShane? she says. We need you too, please.

  And we’re looking at each other, me and the Kennedy woman, never seen each other in our lives before, and then we both go behind the curtain. I let her go first, thinking I was being polite. I always remember that. I thought it was good manners. Then we saw them.

  They told us a clatter of things that day. Lisa had been in the Kennedy fella’s car, and did they know each other? They’d found her phone blown clear and some of the messages suggested they’d gone to meet up and . . . you know. When we saw the bodies, they were still holding hands. They’d sort of burned together and couldn’t be separated. Your woman, the wife, she turned round and looked at me like it was my fault. Did you know? she said. Like I should have.

  Well, that was just the end for me. I’d my kids to think of and all that talk about their ma carrying on with some man. The oldest is near twelve now. She hears things. At school, you know. I had to protect them. The Kennedy woman, she goes to meetings, but I just stay away. At least Lisa had no family round here – she’d been adopted, she was put in a children’s home when she was wee.

  The worst thing was reading those messages. Sounded like he was trying to finish it with her and she was begging. Tom, Tom, I love you, please will you meet me, you owe me that much. When I think of that, and about their hands, I can’t help wondering, was she crying before she died? Was she hurting so bad she’d maybe have been glad when it came?

  Chapter Nine

  ‘So it’s definitely Brady.’

  ‘Surprised they can tell,’ muttered Gerard. ‘His mother would hardly know him like that.’

  On the office’s projector screen, the pictures of Brady’s severed head, soil-stained, were indeed hard to match to the bloated, unhealthy pictures they had of him in life.

  ‘They found a licence on the body again,’ said Guy. ‘There’s no attempt to conceal identity. He was hardly buried at all, just put under some scattered soil. His head was found on the other side of the bog, propped on a stone.’ Guy illustrated this with a map of the bogland, red dots marking the body and the head.

  ‘Was there a note in the mouth again?’ asked Paula.

  ‘We don’t have the full autopsy results yet, but yes, there was a note.’

  ‘And?’

  He frowned slightly at her impatient tone. ‘And it’s the same, ruled exercise paper, what looks like the same writing. This time it says “unforeseen escalation”.’

  ‘Unforeseen escalation,’ she repeated. ‘Is it—?’

  ‘It’s another phrase from Ireland First’s statement,’ Avril confirmed. ‘From the time of the bombing. They said there’d been an “unforeseen escalation”, what with the bank collapsing and the petrol station going on fire – even though they still didn’t say it was them planted the bomb.’

  Guy leafed through some papers. ‘Forensics did manage to analyse the note in Doyle’s mouth – no DNA there, but we can source the paper to a standard exercise book sold in several outlets in town. Nothing unusual, unfortunately.’

  ‘And the writing?’ asked Bob.

  ‘That’s interesting. It went to a graphologist, who believes the note was maybe written by a child, or a young person.’

  They all stared at him. ‘There’s no way a child could manhandle a fella like Martin Flaherty,’ Gerard scoffed. ‘The man’s six foot four in his stocking soles.’

  ‘Right. It could also possibly be a young woman. So what this suggests is—’

  ‘More than one person,’ murmured Avril, who was taking notes.

  ‘Exactly.’

  Fiacra groaned. ‘Ah, no.’ Everyone hated cases with more than one perpetrator – messy, and hard to pin it on one or the other.

  Guy said, ‘I know, but let’s face it, there was never any way one person could have lifted all five of the bombers on the same day. We have the white van as well – we’ve been able to pull some CCTV from near Brady’s flat and one was seen driving by there on the first of April. We think it’s the same one as was seen at Creggan Forest and out near the bog, as there’s no plates. So – it must be more than one person, yes. A group, probably, who could plan the kidnap of five strong adults, without being seen or caught. If it was five. There’s also the fact that Flaherty seems to have known he was going to disappear – the will changing, and the fact he contacted his daughter. But the other four appear to have been forcibly taken, certainly, and not everyone could do that.’

  Gerard jumped in. ‘That’s why I favoured Kenny’s lot for it. Word is him and Flaherty go way back, joined the Ra together in the seventies. That journalist who wrote the book – she said Kenny and Flaherty were thick as thieves back then.’ Maeve’s book, he must mean. Paula wondered if there was any connection there, the book coming out, then the Five going missing. Gerard went on. ‘I’d like to chat some more to a few of my boys, see what they’ve heard. I mean, he’d have had help. He wouldn’t get his hands dirty himself. I hear talk too that Kenny’s hold is slipping with the local Ra.’

  ‘The local IRA he isn’t officially part of now,’ said Guy drily. ‘Why?’

  ‘People think he’s gone soft. Sucking up to the cops and about to go over to Westminster and take his seat, they reckon. Will I talk to my boys then?’

  Avril tutted audibly but said nothing. His inf
ormers, was what Gerard meant. He was a big fan of the ‘ear on the street’ approach. It was a source of great sorrow to Gerard that he’d joined the force in the days of the PSNI and PACE. He’d have been much happier skulking about in stakeout cars, slamming his fist against interview-room tables, smoking in the office while wearing a trench coat.

  Guy said, ‘That’s acceptable, as long as you keep it at strictly a voluntary, informal chat. We can’t authorise any covert human sources at this time. Is that clear, DC Monaghan?’

  ‘Some cash would help,’ said Gerard nonchalantly. ‘These boys don’t talk for free.’

  Bob made a noise of disgust and Guy said, ‘Not now, I’m afraid. Just talk to them.’

  Paula thought again of their faces – the two remaining men, the woman. So many people with reasons to want rid of them. The children who’d be left without a mother. ‘What’s being done to find them, the other three?’

  Guy shuffled his papers again. ‘As I said, we don’t have the full results yet, but Brady appears to have been killed in the past twenty-four hours – so there’s a site somewhere else we need to find, where he’s been held – it seems likely the others are there too. He also has over a hundred small injuries to his body. Look at this.’ He passed them some sheets of paper and read it for them. ‘Glass poked into him, small burns on every patch of skin, what looked like injuries from bricks or stones dropped onto him. His left eye had a large piece of glass sticking out of it, so it was oozing vitreous fluid.’

  ‘He was tortured, then?’ asked Bob, with distaste. He was clearly finding it hard to work on this case. Paula could only imagine what it had been like to be on duty in the aftermath of the Mayday bomb.