Brian McGilloway - The Nameless Dead (Inspector Devlin #5)

by Brian McGilloway

  She spoke for a moment about the new Ireland and how we had put the evils of the past behind us. She suggested that the recovery of the Disappeared was part of a wider Truth-and-Reconciliation process whereby we could move forward.

  Patterson arrived as Miriam was finishing and delivered a few lines to the assembled press about the work of An Garda in supporting the Commission.

  All this time the men who had recovered Cleary’s body continued working quietly on recovering the corpse without further disintegration, with seemingly little awareness of the attention their work was receiving.

  ‘So what happens now?’ I asked Millar as we had a smoke just out of sight of the cameramen. I expected the usual activity of a crime scene, with forensics officers and SOCOs recording and photographing the scene, working hard to preserve the integrity of any evidence found. This was markedly different.

  ‘We get the body freed up, the pathologist takes it and we go home. We’ll do DNA comparisons and that in the lab. The remains will be held until final confirmation of identity. It normally takes a few months.’

  ‘So you’re done here then?’

  ‘We’ll be here a few more days,’ he added. ‘Just to complete the dig. We always have to dig a bit further around where the body is located to be sure we’ve got everything. With the best will in the world, it’s not unusual afterwards to discover something we missed on the day the body was found. Once that’s all done, we have to refill all the sites we’ve excavated.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll see you before you finish up.’

  Millar nodded, then stubbed out his smoke.

  ‘It is shit thinking that people get away with this. But at the end of the day, all we can hope to do is bring some peace to those who’ve been left behind. That has to be enough, you know?’

  He squinted at me as he spoke, though I suspected the words were as much for his own benefit as mine.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I made it home just after six. Debbie had held back dinner so we could eat together. Penny finished first and went out to feed Frank while we cleaned up. I carried out a plate of leftovers from dinner for his plate.

  Penny was sitting on the back step with Frank snuggled beside her, her arm around his neck, her hand playing with the skin beneath his long velvet ear.

  ‘Everything okay, sweetie?’ I asked.

  She glanced up at me and smiled mildly, her hand scratching at Frank’s skin.

  ‘Frank is getting very slow,’ she said.

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ I said, lowering myself down beside her. ‘He’s getting old.’

  She half-laughed at the comment, but I could tell her mind was on other things.

  ‘They were talking in school today about cillins,’ she said. ‘They found one on Islandmore.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you think those babies never got to heaven?’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’

  ‘Our teacher said that they were in limbo. That any baby that dies before being baptized goes to limbo. I told her she was wrong.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘She sent me to the year head.’

  ‘For telling her she was wrong?’

  ‘For telling her she was talking shit.’

  ‘Well, that would do it, right enough. You can’t talk to teachers that way.’

  ‘Even when they are?’

  ‘Are what?’

  ‘Talking shit.’

  ‘Even then.’

  She glanced sideways at me to gauge whether I was annoyed.

  ‘I have to write a letter of apology. I don’t want to.’

  I considered her comment. ‘I can understand why. But if you were personally rude to the woman you should say sorry. You don’t have to apologize for what you believe, just how you expressed it.’

  ‘It’s just that, if she’s right, then the baby you and Mum lost before me is trapped somewhere, in something people don’t even know exists.’

  ‘I think anyone who suggests the existence of limbo displays a very flawed understanding of God. It seems unlikely to me that the God I believe in would suffer to have children in particular separated from him for eternity.’

  She smiled broadly. ‘I must write that in the letter,’ she said. ‘Of course, it would help if I could really believe in God.’

  With that she stood up and walked into the house before I could respond.

  Penny had avoided any further discussion. Later I mentioned it to Debs, who seemed wholly unconcerned.

  ‘Kids go through all kinds of things. She’s just questioning what we’ve told her. Imagine, questioning authority! Where did she get that quality from? Apples don’t fall far from trees, Ben.’

  ‘So it’s my fault?’

  The ringing of the phone saved her having to answer.

  ‘This is Letterkenny station, Inspector. We’ve got a call out about a public order incident in Islandview. The woman involved gave your name.’

  By the time I got to her house, Christine Cashell’s face was still flushed, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy with tears. The uniform who had lifted her told me that she had been much more agitated when he had arrived, screaming at the neighbours, and assaulting him when he attempted to restrain her.

  ‘How did she assault you?’

  He held out his arm; a thin red streak of blood revealed where Christine had scratched him as he tried to drag her from a neighbouring garden out into the street.

  ‘That looks nasty,’ I said, straight-faced. ‘You might need medical attention.’

  He stared at me, as if unsure whether I was joking or not.

  ‘I’ll maybe cut back to the station and get a plaster or something.’

  ‘You do that. I’ll take it from here.’

  After he left I went back into the room and sat beside Christine. She had not spoken since my arrival, but the fact she had given my name to the officer suggested she had, at least, wanted me there.

  ‘Where’s . . .?’

  ‘Andrew,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right. Andrew? Is he here?’

  She shook her head. ‘He went to the pub with his brothers.’

  ‘So what happened that you ended up assaulting an officer of the law?’

  She looked at me, willing me to believe her. ‘I heard Michael crying, in the monitor. He wouldn’t stop. Then someone hit him. I heard them shouting. Heard the slap. It was horrible. It’s like he’s caught somewhere that I can’t get to him and he needs me.’

  I took her hand in mine.

  ‘You know Michael’s gone, don’t you, Christine?’

  She began to cry again, shuddering tears. Finally, she nodded.

  ‘Why are you torturing yourself listening to a baby monitor?’

  ‘I can’t . . . I can’t help it. I bought it; I never used one with my first and I started to panic when I was carrying Michael. I shouldn’t have bought it. I should have waited till he was born. I tempted fate.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Christine.’

  ‘But this is all I have of Michael now. When he went, I plugged it in because I thought it would make me closer to him; this thing I’d got for him. Then I heard him crying. But no one believes me. Andrew wants me to turn it off, but that would be like saying I don’t want my baby anymore. I can’t do that.’

  The monitor hissed quietly on the arm of the sofa, whispering through our conversation in a hush of static buzzing.

  ‘What about tonight?’

  ‘I heard something. I searched the house for Michael, but he wasn’t there. I couldn’t take the noise; I went outside. Andrew was away already. I could hear Michael crying, in my head; it wouldn’t stop. There’s someone in the show house across the way – a new woman. I went across to her, to ask her if she could hear it, too. She told me to leave her alone; she said I was insane. I lost it with her. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t control it. The crying wouldn’t stop.’

  ‘You need to get some help from th
e doctor, Christine. To help you through all this. You shouldn’t be doing it on your own. Do you want me to call Andrew?’

  ‘It’s his first night out since the baby was born. He’s trying his best, but I know he doesn’t believe me. No one believes me.’

  I wanted to tell her that I believed her, to offer her that comfort, but the words seemed to stick. Instead I stood up. ‘Is there anyone else I can get for you before I . . .’

  I stopped as the lights on the monitor, perched on the arm of the sofa, flickered into life. Quickly, the illumination strafed across the display, from one side to the other.

  Christine noticed it too, for she sat up and pointed speechlessly. I was moving back towards her when I heard it.

  It was not so much a cry as a ghost of a cry, an echo without a source, its presence confirmed more by the flickering lights on the unit than by the tinny sound it produced. It was enough, certainly, to make me shiver, to cause me to rub the goose-bumps from my arm with the palm of my hand. The second cry, though, was different, growing in intensity to a strangled yelp of pain, then vanishing.

  We heard the crackle of static, then the crying began again in earnest, a protracted wail punctuated with sobbing, building to a crescendo then subsiding into coughing sobs as if the child was wearying.

  Christine turned to me, her face set defiantly, her eyes alive with a mixture of terror and elated vindication.

  ‘Now do you believe me?’

  The child roared for some minutes, its howls growing ever more anguished. Finally, when it seemed it would never stop, we heard a voice, muffled but deep enough to be an adult’s. We could not make out what exactly was being said, but the tone left little room for misinterpretation. We heard a single abrupt smack, as the child whimpered. Then with an abrupt click the sound of the monitor stopped.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I walked the estate, hoping that the child we had heard might be somewhere in the vicinity, its crying audible, but all was quiet. The show house which Christine had mentioned was in darkness. So too was number 67, Peter O’Connell evidently plying his trade elsewhere.

  I waited with Christine until Andrew Dunne returned from the pub. Christine had called him to tell him that, finally, she had someone who could corroborate the claims she had made and, in so doing, prove both to herself and to him that she wasn’t mad.

  I made it across to Strabane just before ten o’clock that evening to join Hendry on the reconstruction of Sean Cleary’s final hours. Although Cleary was killed in the middle of the night, there seemed little point in leaving the reconstruction until then.

  The weather was an improvement on the previous night, too. The sky was clear and starry, the air chilled and sharp. Uniforms stopped cars as they passed, offering leaflets with a picture of Sean Cleary on it. Taxi men in particular were being targeted. Cleary lived in Lifford, yet had been found in Strabane, despite not having his car with him. We also knew from Callan’s neighbour that Cleary had arrived at his house in a cab; possibly he had used a cab at some stage later that evening, too.

  Hendry was directing the other officers when I arrived, so I availed myself of the offer of a sausage roll and a mug of tea from a flask set up in the back of one of the police jeeps until he was ready to speak to me.

  ‘Good of you to join us,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve got down to the important stuff first,’ he added nodding at the cup I held.

  ‘I like to get my priorities in order. What’s happening?’

  ‘The post-mortem was completed this morning. It confirms mostly what himself told us the last day; Cleary was shot with a silenced pistol at close range. The bullet shattered in the baffles and the pathologist recovered the pieces he could find, so we’ll run ballistics; it’ll be tricky, though, with the shattering.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Time of death is probably between midnight and four in the morning, which doesn’t help us wildly. He did find one thing which he was interested in. Cleary’s fingers on his right hand were covered with paper fibres and smudges of ink. The pathologist has suggested newspaper fibres. The smudging of the ink suggested to him that someone pulled the paper from his grasp; the doc seemed to think it happened shortly before death.’

  ‘It could mean he stopped at the chippie on his way to the playground and someone stole his fish supper.’

  ‘It’s all food with you, isn’t it?’ Hendry said. ‘Milk and two sugars,’ he added, gesturing towards the flask.

  ‘We also got lucky on the bloody footprint Ryan suggested we would find. It could be the killer’s. Small, mind you – a size 7 Adidas Ambition Powerbounce 2.0, apparently.’

  ‘Short and snappy.’

  ‘The name or the wearer?’

  ‘Both by the sounds of it, if he wears a size 7. What’s your theory?’

  ‘I’m hoping some of the kids across the way will be able to help,’ Hendry said, glancing across at the waste ground where we had seen the remains of the fire the day before.

  In fact, we kept an eye on the old factory site throughout the evening. When I first arrived, three or four boys were lurking inside the wall, sticking to the shadows, watching the police operation with a mixture of disdain and fascination. As the evening progressed, though, the numbers grew, until by midnight there were over a dozen. They had tired quickly of watching the checkpoints and the lack of response they had got from the occasional insults they had shouted. Hendry had warned the uniforms not to react; he wanted them to settle, wanted to ensure there were as many of them there as possible. Only if they looked like they were leaving should someone approach them.

  Eventually they drifted across to where we had seen the remains of the fire on Sunday morning. Sure enough, a few moments later we saw the first flickers of flames as they started burning some of the rubbish lying around. They were seated on the milk crates and, having perhaps been reluctant, initially, to start drinking alcohol on the street so close to a PSNI checkpoint, they soon grew braver and began passing round cans of beer. Their laughter grew as the night deepened.

  ‘That seems to be the lot,’ Hendry said, just after midnight. ‘Shall we join them for a chat?’

  The noise of the boys, and the light from the fire, made it easy for us to get close to them before one of them noticed us. Straight away three of them were on their feet. One in particular was slightly crouched as he stood, tensed as if to run if the need arose. He wore a puffy black jacket over a hooded top, and his trousers hung low on his hips, flapping loosely around his legs in the light breeze blowing across the factory yard.

  ‘No panic, men,’ Hendry said, lighting his torch and holding it aloft so they could at least see where the voice was coming from. ‘We’re only looking for your help.’

  One boy who had turned to look at us as we approached groaned and theatrically turned his back on us again, muttering something to the others and gaining the approbation of their laughter in return.

  The three boys who had stood up relaxed a little, though none of them sat down again.

  ‘There was a murder across in the playground during the early hours of Sunday morning, men. Did any of you see anything?’

  No one responded.

  ‘Were any of you here on Saturday night into Sunday morning?’

  Again nothing. I realized that several of the teenagers sitting around the fire were not boys at all, but teenaged girls. I recognized one of them as a young girl called Claire, a friend of Penny’s. When she saw that I had recognized her she turned her head away quickly and muttered something to the boy in the puffed jacket who stood next to her. I tried to dismiss the thought that my own child might spend nights in such surroundings and company.

  ‘Come on, fellas,’ Hendry said. ‘We’re not looking for your blood.’

  ‘What about you, girls?’ I asked.

  A few of the boys with their backs to us began to snigger, encouraging the girls to do likewise. The one to the other side of Claire smiled at me.

  ‘Fuck off, Brit,�
�� she said.

  The circle exploded into laughter at this; all except Claire and the boy in the puffed jacket. He smirked a little, but remained on edge, wetting his lips briefly with the tip of his tongue. He was trying to play it cool, but the alcohol he had consumed caused him to exaggerate his actions. Still, it didn’t mean he knew anything; he could have been carrying something; drugs, a knife maybe.

  ‘He’s not a Brit,’ Hendry said. ‘He’s more Irish than you are, love. Do your parents know you’re out?’

  If anything was likely to clam them up, it was threatening them with their parents.

  ‘We just need some help, folks,’ I said. ‘A man was killed in the playground two nights ago. We’re just wondering if any of you saw anything. We know there were people here that night. Maybe you saw something?’

  If I had imagined appealing to their sense of decency would prove any more fruitful, I was mistaken. Nervous laughter rippled around the group but none of them spoke.

  Hendry took out his radio and clicked on it twice. We heard the static, then a voice said ‘Sir?’

  ‘We’re across the street here,’ Hendry said. ‘I need someone with luminol, as soon as you can.’

  ‘Sir?’ the voice sounded bewildered, but Hendry cut off the radio quickly.

  The youths feigned nonchalance, but it was clear that their interest had been piqued. As had mine; Hendry was clearly working a bluff, for there would be no one with luminol at a reconstruction.

  ‘We have very good forensics people,’ Hendry said. ‘They’ve already told us that they found a footprint in the blood of the victim the other night, possibly from the killer; a trainer footprint. They were even able to tell us the make; Adidas Ambition Powerbounce.’

  ‘2.0,’ I added.

  ‘Just so,’ Hendry agreed. ‘And the size; 7.’

  He had the whole group’s attention now. I could see a few of the girls scanning the ground, noting the make of each of the boys’ shoes. I was trying my best to do the same, though aware that I wouldn’t be able to tell one Adidas shoe from another.

  ‘Now, blood stays on things for a long time. And just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. A quick squirt of luminol on each of your shoes, and we’ll soon have all we need. So, who’s first?’