The Silent Dead

by Claire McGowan

  Sean Conlon was now fifty, Paula knew. He had three children with two different women and he’d not seen any of them in twelve years. He’d joined the IRA at fifteen. Allegedly he’d helped shoot John O’Hara when he was twenty-five. Planted the bomb he was doing time for at thirty-eight. But he looked like any man you’d see on the poorer streets in town, a little chubby, a little pasty. Tattoos up and down his arms. Wary. When she came in he gave her a weary nod. He’d done this a hundred times before.

  ‘Hello. I’m Dr Ma—’ She stopped. Swallowed. ‘I’m a forensic psychologist.’

  He nodded. ‘You’d be with the missing persons crowd?’

  ‘Yes. Our remit is to open old cases, look for new evidence, as well as coordinating new ones. We don’t have a specific political focus but we do work closely with the Commission for the Disappeared.’

  Sean moved, the metal of his handcuffs making a tinkling sound that was oddly cheerful. He knew the drill. ‘My assurances?’

  She was ready for this. ‘We’re an independent commission, so not part of the CPS. However, I am authorised to report back to the parole board if you’ve been helpful or not. I understand you may not have any knowledge of these specific cases.’

  Again he just nodded and held out his cuffed hands. ‘Let me see.’

  She rooted in her bag for a few moments, willing the surge of blood to her face to subside. She had a bundle of printouts, each one with the name and picture of a missing person, carefully screened for all staples, clips or rogue pens. She knew a psychologist who’d lost an eye that way in one prison.

  Sean Conlon leafed through them with one hand. The fingers were squat, hairy, a tattoo on the back of a Celtic cross. Around his neck a crucifix. He read in silence, Paula watching. She was as jittery as the man was calm. His eyes flicked to her when she adjusted her jumper over her bump. ‘When are you due?’

  She flushed. ‘June.’ She wanted to hide it with her arms.

  He turned a page. ‘Not a nice place to come when you’re expecting.’

  She said nothing. He cleared his throat. ‘You could save your time, doc, if there’s any of these you think I might be linked with. We didn’t always know their names, see. It’d be dark and we’d have masks on too.’ He pushed some away. ‘No weans. Never got involved with no weans.’

  ‘Women?’

  He didn’t flinch. ‘The odd time.’

  Paula reached for the pile of papers. Her hands were shaking so badly it took her several goes to find the right one. Averting her eyes from the familiar photo – she’d taken it, for God’s sake, playing with the camera as a kid – she placed it before Sean Conlon. He studied it, then put out one stubby finger and framed the face, squinting as if trying to see something. His lips pursed. Paula realised she was holding her breath.

  ‘Hm,’ he said. ‘I know this one. She was from Ballyterrin.’

  ‘Y-yes. She was.’

  ‘The nineties.’ He said it oddly, almost nostalgically. ‘’Ninety-nine it was they got me.’ It explained why he was still in prison while so many equally notorious terrorists were free and walking the streets. The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 had been seen as a watershed, and everything before it was supposed to be washed away, forgiven. But people could still be convicted for anything that happened after. ‘Can I hold on to these?’

  ‘I suppose so.’ It was just paper, after all. Names and dates and faces of the lost.

  ‘I’m not saying I know anything, now. I’ll think. It might just be from posters or that. If I remember, how do I get you?’

  ‘Tell the governor,’ said Paula. She didn’t want this man knowing her number, or anything about her. And yet he might be the only person who could help.

  ‘OK.’ He was done. ‘I’ll have a wee think. No immediate bells.’

  ‘All right. Thank you.’ Thanks for telling us who you might have murdered, Sean! What a mad post-conflict world it was. She took a breath. ‘You may also have heard that the mayor’s gone missing.’

  ‘Kenny? Aye, I heard someone lifted him. Not surprising, really.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Aye, he was talking about taking his seat in Westminster. Swearing the oath to the Queen and all. That’d annoy a lot of people.’

  ‘Is there anything you could tell us about that?’

  ‘Ah, no. I know the background. But you’ve come to the wrong place if you think I know anything more. Sure I’ve been stuck in here over a decade.’

  She watched him; quailed before his stare. ‘I’ll . . . if you think of anything, perhaps you’d let us know.’

  Paula rapped on the door to show they were finished, and Sean placed both wrists on the table. ‘An bhfuil Gaeilge agat?’ He asked it quietly, not looking at her. Anyone listening might have missed it over the buzzing of the door.

  Paula froze with her back to him. She nodded very slightly. Yes, she spoke some Irish.

  ‘Tá sí do mháthair?’ Is she your mother?

  Maguire. Of course. For fuck’s sake. It was written on the badge round her neck. She had the same name, same face, same hair.

  She turned to look at him, mute. His face was very strange. Interested. Compassionate, maybe. He nodded, as if seeing something that satisfied him. Then the guard was coming in and leading him out. ‘Good luck with the baby, miss,’ called the man who’d murdered five people. That they knew of, at least.

  Kira

  The office was much nicer than she’d thought. There was a machine with water and plastic cups, and a thick blue carpet. His assistant asked them all did they want tea or coffee, and Kira said coffee to look grown up, and when it came it was black and horrible but she drank it anyway.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said, briskly, shaking her hand, then Dominic’s, then Ann’s. ‘It’s an honour to have you here. And please accept my condolences for your loss. We’re all united in condemnation of such a brutal act.’

  Kira was a bit confused about it, but she knew this man had been in the IRA too – everyone knew that, though they weren’t allowed to say so on the news, they had to call him Mayor Jarlath Kenny, and talk about how he was going to run to be their local MP. But maybe he’d killed some people too. Not everyone in the group knew they were here, because of that, but Dominic just said something about strange bedfellows.

  ‘I wanted to meet you as representatives of the group and say that if I’m elected I will of course pursue all avenues of compensation available to you.’

  ‘What about legal avenues?’ said Ann in her dry, cross way.

  ‘The five suspects were acquitted,’ Kenny said.

  ‘We know that, we were there. But they are clearly guilty.’ Dominic sounded annoyed, underneath his ‘talking to official people’ voice.

  ‘There’s little we can do if the justice system has played out,’ said Kenny, and he really sounded sad. ‘I think the key now is to focus on the memorial, and ensuring this doesn’t happen again by supporting the peace process.’

  ‘So you’re saying we have to accept the verdict?’

  ‘What else can we do, Mr Martin?’ Kira didn’t like the way he was saying we, like it was something to do with him. ‘The civil trial option is so expensive and gruelling, are you sure you’d want to put yourselves through that . . .’

  Dominic caught her eye. It was up to her now. Kira leaned forward. Outside in the office there were people typing, phones ringing, chatter and the odd laugh. ‘We have another idea,’ she said quietly. ‘Mr Kenny, we want you to help us with something.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Paula lumbered back to the unit, in a thoroughly foul mood as a soaking May rain fell over the town, the mugginess of the day finally broken. The working day was nearly over, but the team had been on near-constant duty. They were short on manpower with Bob’s suspension – her fault, though hardly the outcome she’d expected – and she was needed there. There were still two bombers to find as well as Kenny. That was what mattered. Find the lost things, put them back where they belonged,
and everything would fall into place, and it wouldn’t matter about Aidan being up at the hospital at Maeve’s bedside, or about the fact she’d had to look at a dead woman that no one cared enough to find, or the impending birth of her child, which could not be gotten around without going through, or that she’d just come face to face with the man who maybe knew what had happened to her mother. None of that would matter at all, if she just kept looking.

  Back at the unit the mood was equally sombre. The band of journalists who’d been door-stepping the unit had scattered in the rain, sheltering in the coffee shop opposite. Inside Avril and Fiacra sat at their desks in rigid silence, where once they would have played music or made each other cups of tea or gossiped in a familiar undertone that could make you feel like a total outsider. Every few minutes the phone buzzed with an irritating three-note cheep. No one picked it up. Paula glanced at it, wondering why. ‘What’s the latest?’

  ‘Oh, the usual.’ Avril didn’t look up from her clacking keys. ‘I checked with the hospital and you were right, Flaherty’s dying of stage four lung cancer. He’d been offered palliative care but refused any treatment or pain medication.’

  She put her bag down on the chair, frowning. What did it mean? He was dying, and his house had been left so neat and tidy, and he hadn’t gone in the van with the other bombers – so where was he?

  ‘Boss wants to see you,’ said Fiacra, also not looking up.

  Paula sighed. ‘In his office?’

  ‘Yeah, and the DCI is there too.’

  Avril looked up. ‘Are you in trouble, Paula?’

  ‘I guess I’ll find out, won’t I?’ She trudged to the office, rubbing her aching back, knocked on the door and went in. ‘What’s the problem?’

  Corry and Guy were very still, he at his desk, she standing by the window.

  Paula saw a look pass between them and some feeling went pop inside her. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Sit down, Dr Maguire. Shut the door.’ Corry.

  That phrase again. ‘I’d rather stand, if you’re going to. Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?’

  Another look. Guy placed his hands on the desk. ‘We think there’s a leak in the investigation.’

  ‘The notes,’ said Corry. ‘No one is supposed to know about them. So how come Dominic Martin was able to quote them back to me?’

  ‘It could just be coincidence. Those phrases were in the public domain, after all. Or maybe, like I’ve always said, he wrote them and we just haven’t been able to prove it.’

  Another look. Corry placed something on the desk. ‘There’s also this.’

  It was a page from the Ballyterrin Gazette. She’d largely stopped reading it because it only made her cross with Aidan. He was always sticking the boot into the police somehow, and the unit was often the focus of his scorn. Aidan didn’t believe in offering immunity to terrorists, even if it helped find the bodies of the lost, and was furious they were working with the Commission for the Disappeared. The story was about the Mayday Five – he’d plastered it with their pictures, and Maeve’s book was also detailed, accompanied by a stern but beautiful picture of her leaning against a wall with her arms folded. The Mayday Five were all named as the perpetrators of the bomb.

  ‘That’s libel,’ she said absently.

  ‘You can’t libel the dead,’ said Corry tersely. ‘Three of them are in the morgue, in case you forgot. Look at page six – he knows about the notes.’

  She peered at it. ‘Oh. That’s not good.’

  ‘We were keeping that back on purpose, so we could eliminate suspects. Now that’s blown. Now the Gazette has it it’ll be all over the media.’

  She looked up at them, Corry glaring with folded arms, Guy frowning down at his desk. ‘I see. You think I did this?’

  Corry stared her down. ‘Dr Maguire. We’re aware of your – relationship with the editor of the paper. I’m afraid we have to ask you formally if you have allowed him access to any of the case notes. It wouldn’t be the first time, would it?’

  She opened her mouth. Guy jumped in. ‘He could have got them himself. Perhaps it wasn’t even your fault.’

  ‘Aidan wouldn’t do that! He’s an old-fashioned journalist. He gets people to talk, he doesn’t go through their things.’

  Corry sighed. ‘Paula. This is very serious; I don’t need to tell you that. May I remind you that the unit has had this case for over a month and so far you haven’t found any of the missing alive? All we have is dead bodies, and now the mayor, the actual mayor of the town, is also missing. I’d say that for a missing persons unit, that constitutes a pretty big failure. And I’m not doing much better – we’ve got eyewitness testimony against Kenny and what sounds like some of the Mayday families, but we haven’t been able to pin a thing on them. Why is this happening? I should have realised sooner there might be a leak. The damn phone’s been ringing off the hook all morning since this came out.’

  ‘It isn’t me,’ Paula said stonily. ‘I’m doing my best to find them. You were the one who said I was working too hard on the case!’

  ‘Does he have access to your phone?’ Guy asked the question uncomfortably.

  She quelled him with a glare. ‘I haven’t seen Mr O’Hara for a number of weeks – except in hospital, where we were a bit more concerned about our friend who’s seriously injured. Aside from our family connection, which is hardly rare in a town this size – half the PSNI are related to someone – we are not in contact, and he certainly could not get access to my work email. Your leak is somewhere else.’ She leafed through the paper. ‘Can I take this?’

  Corry was pursing her lips, looking at Guy to say something. Paula didn’t wait for an answer – she took the paper and stalked out, allowing the door to close that bit harder than usual behind her.

  ‘Why do you do it?’

  In the past Aidan would have greeted her with a sarky comment, a lippy remark, and that would have been them away, trading insults. What passed for flirting, with them. But now he gave her a look that was fast becoming familiar, his eyes moving straight to her bump, avoiding her gaze. ‘Can I help you?’

  Paula had found him in her least favourite place, Ballyterrin General Hospital, and she’d made herself go up to where Maeve lay in the ICU. There was an officer on the door but she’d argued her way in, all five foot ten of her and two extra stone of baby. Aidan was sitting outside the glass-walled private room, his head in his hands. She said, ‘The notes. How did you know?’

  He looked at the paper she was slapping against the seat. ‘The notes in the mouths?’

  ‘Yes of course the bloody notes in the mouths. That was deliberately withheld, and now you’ve plastered it all over the paper. Who told you?’

  ‘I hope that’s not a serious attempt to get me to reveal my sources. You should know I don’t do that.’

  ‘Aidan. They think I told you. They even think you might have gone through my phone. I might get suspended.’

  ‘Why would they think that?’

  ‘Because hardly anyone knows, and you and me, we’re – you know.’

  He scratched his neck – he needed a shave, and a haircut. His dark hair flopped over the collar of his Springsteen T-shirt. ‘Look, Maguire, I don’t reveal sources, not for anyone. But in this case it was an anonymous tip-off. I’m no wiser than you. Look.’ He took out his phone and called up an email, passed it to her, the address just a string of numbers – 010506. The name on the email said A Source.

  Paula thumbed through it, frowning. ‘Someone trying to be clever?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. There’s scans of the notes, the lot.’

  ‘Why would someone do this?’

  ‘You’re the psychologist, Maguire.’

  ‘They must be working with us. Only a police insider would know this – or else the killer. Look, I’m going to have to take this to Corry and Brooking. They need to know.’ She thought suddenly of Fiacra, his angry truculence, the sneakiness of what he’d done to Avril. But he wouldn�
�t damage the investigation – would he? She fell silent, following Aidan’s gaze to the room where Maeve lay, the machines still breathing for her. A woman with a short dark bob bent over her, talking, even though Maeve clearly could not hear. ‘Is she . . .’

  ‘She’s all right,’ Aidan said. ‘Not that you asked. She hasn’t woken up yet but . . . they’re hopeful.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I did phone to check on her. I just . . . couldn’t be here.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Why did you use it?’ she burst out. ‘This isn’t the first time you’ve bollixed up a case for us by printing stuff. Don’t you ever realise it might mean justice isn’t done?’

  Aidan turned back to the room. He seemed too distant these days to even fight with her, as if vital circuits were shorted out on their old connection. ‘Was it justice when those Five walked free from court, tell me? I’ve my own brand of justice – telling people the truth, and letting them decide.’

  ‘People. The mob, you mean.’

  ‘Maybe. And you’ve your own brand, too, and as I recall it isn’t always the exact definition of the law.’

  ‘Oh for God’s . . .’ She stopped.

  ‘What?’ He followed her gaze.

  She stared at the screen of the phone in her hand. ‘The numbers – it’s the date of the bomb. First of May, 2006. It’s the bomb.’

  Aidan’s forehead creased. ‘Why would someone send us this?’

  ‘Publicity. The notes were done for a reason. My guess is someone doesn’t want this dismissed as an IRA feud. They want the punishment to be seen. To get their voices heard.’

  ‘Like a public hanging.’ ‘Exactly like that.’ She thought of Dominic Martin’s angry words after the trial. They should be strung up . . . My daughter didn’t have much of a voice.

  Aidan rubbed a hand over his face. ‘What do you think’s going on here, Maguire? Your instincts are usually right, even if you do run off on some awful half-cocked missions sometimes.’

  ‘You’re one to talk. Honestly – and this is hard to admit, knowing what I know – I think the families did it. Dominic Martin definitely knows something, and there’s this teenage girl, Kira Woods, she’s only thirteen but she knows something. I’m sure of it.’