The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

  Guy approached, all suit and smile. ‘Father McCracken, is it? I’m DI Brooking. Pleased to put a face to a name.’

  The priest hesitated, then shook his hand. ‘This is Mr Kenny.’

  Paula held her breath for a second, but the ex-Army officer and ex-terrorist shook hands without incident.

  Guy turned to her. ‘This is my colleague, Dr Maguire. She’s helping us build up a profile of the missing people.’

  As was so often the case, the men’s eyes floated over her, taking in her relative youth, her bump, her messy civilian clothes, and passed on. Jarlath Kenny gave her a hard stare for a moment. ‘Dia duit.’ The Irish greeting was basically saying – are you Catholic?

  ‘Dia is Mhuire duit,’ she mumbled, hating herself. Yes, Catholic Maguire. After that they ignored her. Really, Paula didn’t mind being so dismissed. It allowed her to see things without being noticed. She and Guy sat on stools, which were too small for her bulk, so she held herself awkwardly. The walls were lined with Republican memorabilia.

  ‘Well, Inspector,’ said Jarlath Kenny, with control. ‘What can I help you with?’

  ‘It’s about this Mayday case, Mr Kenny. You may have seen that the five Mayday suspects – or sorry, the five who were rumoured to be involved – have gone missing, and two have now turned up dead.’

  ‘I have.’ He took a sip of water. The glass was smeary with fingerprints.

  ‘Mr Kenny, I understand you’re a very knowledgeable man. What we’d like to know is, have you heard anything that might suggest there’s a reprisal element to these disappearances?’

  ‘Do you mean do I know who took them?’

  ‘We can’t even be sure if they were taken. But several of their families have commented that the Five were wary of local Army Command.’ She had to hand it to him, Guy used their faux-military language with what could pass for respect. ‘Given Ireland First’s attempts to derail the peace process, it would hardly be surprising if there was some . . . intervention.’

  Kenny took another sip, choosing his words as carefully as Guy. ‘The Mayday bombing was condemned by everyone who’s committed to peace,’ he said. ‘Flaherty and his cohorts were neither supported nor aided by any groups I know of. It may be they were advised to leave the area, for the sake of local sensibilities . . . the memorial being unveiled soon and the fifth anniversary coming up. But whether any pressure was applied to hasten their departure – no. I know nothing about that.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Guy thought. ‘Am I right to say that if it happened, you’d be the man in the know?’

  He watched Guy closely. ‘I would hope so, Inspector.’

  The priest spoke, in a dry, nervous voice. ‘Mr Kenny is very well connected in the area, where he’s worked tirelessly to bring the Republican movement to the way of peace. And although the bomb was condemned as an atrocity, of course, any retribution against the perpetrators was strongly discouraged.’

  Meaning: they’d been asked to ease back on the kneecapping or punishment beatings.

  ‘Is there anything we could try?’ asked Guy. ‘We’re in something of a bind here. I believe you knew Mr Flaherty when you were both younger?’

  Kenny shifted. ‘I wonder where you’d have heard a thing like that, Inspector.’

  ‘You would have moved in the same . . . circles?’

  ‘I may have met him once or twice, but not to my knowledge.’ Everyone was choosing their words so delicately it was making Paula hold her breath. Under her smock and cardigan, she stroked the firm rising bump of her pregnancy. This was flesh and certainty, a fresh start, untainted by the past, of the fear she would be born into. Paula just hoped the baby wouldn’t sense where she was.

  ‘So you don’t know anything about it,’ Guy was saying.

  ‘I’ve told you all I know, Inspector. We have no contact with rogue elements intent on destabilising the peace process.’

  ‘And your own Westminster bid? Any truth in that?’

  ‘I’m in talks with the party about my selection, yes. I’ve been open about that.’

  ‘But you don’t know Mr Flaherty, and you have no idea where he might be?’

  ‘As I’ve said, no. Several times.’

  ‘So why is it then a journalist recently alleged that you and Mr Flaherty were very close friends?’

  ‘How would I know what you’ve heard, Inspector? I don’t care to repeat myself again.’

  Something had shifted – Paula realised the barman had switched off his radio, and was listening intently.

  Kira

  The next time she went to the house, Kira didn’t climb over the gate. He’d been right about breaking in – it wouldn’t be good to get arrested herself. She got off the bus as before and then just sat on the wall, dangling her legs. March was warm and dry that year, lucky for her. Eventually he came home. It was seven o’clock and his headlights picked her out in the gloom. He must have seen her sitting there hunched, her school bag beside her and regulation school coat on. The gates opened automatically and he went into the light and safeness of his house. After a few minutes Kira got off the wall and started trudging back to the main road. Mammy didn’t ask where she’d been. She never asked any more. Probably she didn’t know what time it was.

  The next day, she did it again. And the next. Then it was the weekend, so she couldn’t get there, as there weren’t any buses. On the Monday she went again. Same walk up, same chilly wait in the darkening road, same car getting home and ignoring her. On the Tuesday things changed. He drove his car in as usual, but then he came back. He walked over the lawn towards her. He was wearing a black wool coat. ‘What is it you want, girl? Why are you here, bothering me?’

  ‘Dharna,’ she said, and her voice sounded funny, because she’d sat there all the other days without saying a word.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I’m sitting so you can see me. Then you have to make me restitution.’

  He looked at her for a long time. She realised she was shivering, had been for ages, just hadn’t noticed it.

  ‘You better come in,’ said the man. ‘You’re freezing, so you are.’

  This time the house seemed brighter, more lived in. ‘Stay there.’

  Kira waited in the kitchen. There was a plastic bag on the side with a Pot Noodle in it – beef kind. Her stomach groaned – she knew there’d be no dinner for her later, Mammy nearly always forgot to make it these days. Sometimes she made herself a Pot Noodle too, that she bought from the corner shop. She looked all round the place, drinking in the details of where he lived.

  The man came back. He’d put on a jumper and taken off his jacket. He leaned on the counter. She realised she was very hungry, and very tired. ‘You’ve been sitting at my door all week,’ he said. ‘What is it you want me to do? I know your sister died. But what can I do about it?’

  ‘Restitution,’ Kira whispered. It was the only word she could say.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Silence. On the fridge she saw a letter pinned up. She recognised the logo of Ballyterrin General Hospital. It was where she’d had all her surgery after it happened, five in a row trying to fix her arms and face after the fire had burned her. It was where they’d taken Rose, where she’d died. She saw the words swim into view, words she could read but didn’t understand: metatastes . . . stage four.

  She looked back at him. Understood it all, suddenly, in a strange way. As if Rose were breathing the truth into her ear. ‘You’re sick.’ She saw the grey tinge to his skin, the dark circles round his eyes.

  He kept on looking at her. ‘I’ll be punished soon enough, lass. It’s all going to be over for me. You know what that letter means?’

  ‘Sort of.’ She did, somehow, in her bones.

  ‘Well then. Maybe you’d go along now. I’m not long for this world.’

  Kira didn’t budge. ‘Are you afraid? Do you think maybe you’ll die and God will judge you? Do you worry you’ll see them, all the people you h
urt? The little babies? Rose?’

  His knuckles whitened as he pressed down on the worktop. ‘Why have you come here, child? It’s over. There’s nothing more to be done.’

  Kira said, ‘There’s always something. You’re wrong. You can always do something.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Dominic Martin’s house told a sad story. It was the kind of large bungalow people bought round Ballyterrin when they started a family, but the windows upstairs were uncurtained, the place unkempt. A bachelor sports car stood in the drive, low-slung with a canvas top. In the back garden there was a swingset, the grass grown up around it.

  Guy saw her look. ‘How old was his daughter?’

  ‘Two, or a few days off it.’

  ‘And the wife—’

  ‘She left, apparently. I heard she has a baby with someone else now.’

  Guy pushed his shoulders straight. ‘It’s very sad – it’s tragic. God knows I can identify. But we have to do our jobs.’

  ‘I know.’ She tried to cover her bump, again feeling how much pain she must be causing to people who’d lost their own children.

  ‘What did you think of what Kenny said?’ he asked.

  ‘Slippery customer. He’d say anything to cover his own back. He must have known Flaherty, surely. He didn’t like you asking about it.’

  ‘Until we have proof, though, we have to play nice with him. Let’s go in.’

  Dominic answered the door in a tracksuit and T-shirt, unshaven and bathed in sweat. His T-shirt clung to him. He just looked at them.

  ‘I’m sorry to call so early,’ Guy began.

  ‘I’m just back from a run,’ he interrupted. ‘Can you wait till I get a wee shower?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘In there.’ He lightly slapped the door of the living room and jogged up the stairs, making the roof shake. Paula was glad to sit down – even walking a few steps seemed too much effort now. The room was the same mismatch: a stained family sofa, but free weights on the floor and a jar of body-building protein on the table. On the mantelpiece was a corkboard tacked over with pictures of a small girl. She’d lost her front teeth in one, and smiled at the photographer with pink gums from someone’s arms. Paula recognised Amber’s mother from the files. She’d stayed at home that day, wanting a bit of peace, while Dominic took Amber into Crossanure to watch the parade. She’d never seen her daughter again.

  Soon Dominic was back, in a different T-shirt and jeans. He smelled of some fresh lemon shower gel and his brown hair was dark with water. ‘Would you take coffee or something?’

  ‘No thank you.’ Paula indicated her bump. ‘Not supposed to.’

  He nodded. His eyes seemed to trace the contours of her, but unlike most people, he didn’t make the obvious comment about her not having long to go. ‘What can I help you with?’ His tone was the same as at the meeting – polite and totally blank, while his eyes said something else that Paula didn’t want to decipher.

  ‘It’s about the Mayday case,’ said Guy. ‘I’m afraid we will need to interview some of the families.’

  ‘Is there any evidence pointing to a specific person?’

  Paula said, ‘It’s the MO, you see. Certain . . . signs have been left that seem to clearly link the deaths to the bombing.’

  ‘We’d go to John Lenehan,’ added Guy. ‘But apparently he’s stepped down as Chair.’

  ‘Well, John isn’t as young as he used to be.’

  ‘Was that the only reason?’ In response to her question, he just stared back. He had green eyes, very clear and piercing. He was, she realised, a very attractive man.

  ‘I’m happy to give a statement,’ he said formally. ‘I run my own business, as you probably know.’

  ‘Green energy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Solar panels, wind turbines, consultancy. So I don’t have an alibi as such for the day they all went, if that’s what you’re after. I’m nearly always out on the road. Now I don’t have childcare to do.’

  The room fell silent. Somewhere in the house, Paula thought she could hear music.

  ‘OK,’ said Dominic, as if they’d asked him something else. ‘I’ll speak to the group and explain you might be calling round. Some of us just can’t stand to talk about it at all, you should know. Not all the families even joined the group.’

  ‘Mr Martin,’ said Guy. ‘We’ve come to you first partly because you’re Acting Chair, but also because we’re aware of the comments you made to reporters after the trial concluded. You recall what you said then?’

  ‘I believe I said they should be strung up,’ he said calmly. ‘Something like that, anyway.’

  ‘As you know, Mickey Doyle literally was.’ Guy was hesitant. ‘He was hanged.’

  ‘In a better justice system he’d have been hanged by the state. Culled like a dog. But they failed us.’

  ‘Are you saying someone else finished the job then? Did what the state couldn’t?’

  A pause. ‘I’m not saying anything. Just that it wasn’t undeserved.’ Another silence. Dominic broke it again. ‘I’ll assist you in whatever way I can, Inspector. Give me a day to talk to the group and I’ll send you a list of all the families. Some are very sensitive about certain issues – the compensation, for one. They didn’t understand why one life was valued more than others. It created . . . divisions. Let me just ring Ann and ask her to dig out the records for you. She has all the minutes, going back five years.’

  He left the room, and Paula and Guy looked at each other. She opened her eyes wide to express helplessness. There was nothing they could say to this man. His loss made him invincible. There were light footsteps on the stairs, different from Dominic’s heavier tread, and a figure appeared in the doorway, wearing just a man’s T-shirt over long, lovely legs. Lily Sloane.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, rubbing her face. ‘I heard voices. Dr Maguire, isn’t it?’ She advanced on Guy. ‘I’m Lily. I was in the bomb too.’ She lifted her sweep of long hair to show her face. She wasn’t wearing a patch today, and so the hole in her face could clearly be seen, a red puckered mess.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ said Guy, not flinching away from the sight. ‘We’d like to speak to you about the incident too, if we can. We’re speaking to everyone in the group.’

  ‘We don’t call it an incident.’ Her fingers, never still, raked through her caramel hair. ‘We call it the day, usually. Cos like we all know what day we mean.’

  ‘Of course. Lily, do you get on well with everyone in the group?’

  ‘S’pose. What do you mean?’

  ‘Is there any disagreement?’

  Lily sighed. ‘Oh, you know what they’re like. It’s so boring sometimes. That trial. Years they were on about it. Blah blah blah judicial review.’

  ‘There was some issue about compensation, I gather?’

  ‘Mmm-hmm. I got money.’ She pointed to her eye again. ‘You see, they do it on like how much earning you might have lost. And I was going to be a model and actress, so Dad got them to give me more. I had a good lawyer.’ She said this like a child, mouthing words. ‘But some people didn’t get anything.’

  ‘Did it cause problems?’ asked Guy.

  ‘Dominic sorted it.’ Her face went gooey. ‘He always knows the right thing to do. He explained it was the law and it wasn’t meant to pay us back, nothing could, it was only meant to make life a bit easier. And he got us to agree that any money in the Victims Fund could be for families who didn’t get much. Fairer like. Most people were OK with that.’

  ‘You and Dominic—’ Paula began.

  Lily looked wary. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You’re together?’

  She shrugged. ‘Whatever that means.’

  ‘He’s your boyfriend, is he?’

  ‘I don’t call him that. He’s special. We’re . . . close.’

  ‘Are you in a sexual relationship?’ asked Guy awkwardly.

  ‘Ew. Why does that even matter?’

  Paula glared at him. ‘I’m sorry, Lily. I’
m sure you think it’s none of our business. It’s just that, legally, if you were, we might not be able to use what you tell us about him.’

  ‘Why would I tell you things?’ She genuinely seemed puzzled. Paula turned to Guy again.

  He said, ‘Ms Sloane, as you know, we’re investigating the disappearances of the so-called Mayday Five.’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was cold.

  ‘Dominic previously said they should be strung up. After the court case failed. And we’ve not been able to get an alibi for him.’

  ‘You want me to be his alibi?’

  ‘No, that’s not . . . we want to know if you think he meant what he said.’

  ‘Duh,’ she exhaled. ‘They blew up his little girl. He loved her. Loved her. His stupid wife blamed him cos he was with her. It ruined his life. It’s only cos he’s so amazing he keeps going at all.’

  Paula sensed a certain relish in Lily for the role of victim, supporting her broken-down man, nurturing the darkness in his soul. Was she exactly the same? She was very aware that Guy’s own loss of a child was what kept her stuck there, even though he was married, and Aidan’s brooding grief over his father’s death was likewise what made her chronically unable to get past him.

  ‘So do you know his whereabouts that day?’ Guy was saying.

  ‘No. I can’t remember, like.’

  ‘Ms Sloane, you really need to tell us the truth.’

  ‘I’m not NOT telling you the truth.’

  They’d annoyed her. She turned her head away, revealing once again the raw, ruined side of her lovely face. She was very young, Paula reminded herself. No one could imagine what it had been like for Lily, so beautiful, to lose all that at just eighteen. ‘We didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said gently.

  ‘Well, you have.’ Lily’s voice was angry, with a telltale shake that made Paula want to give her a hug. There was silence, and Lily’s snuffling tears. Paula looked at Guy. He was glum. They’d made Lily Sloane cry, on top of everything she’d been through in her young life. She gave a trembling sigh and wiped her face with her hands, her T-shirt lifting slightly to reveal the edge of lacy pants. ‘Tell Dom I went upstairs.’ Her voice was thick.