Disappeared
Page 26
“What took you so long?” asked Daly angrily. Even though it was cold, his clothes, covered in mud and leaves, were soaked in sweat.
“We didn’t want a general slaughter on our hands. You should be grateful we got close enough to hit our target. Before he hit his.”
Twenty minutes later Inspector Fealty arrived, along with an ambulance.
“I was beginning to think we would never find our assassin,” he said, inspecting Grimes’s body.
The Special Branch man’s face was gravely pale and weary. He lifted his eyes toward the thorn trees, where the surveillance camera was hidden.
“If you’ve damaged the camera, Daly, we’ll be sending you a hefty bill.”
“Don’t worry. I just switched off the power. I assume it was recording all the time. Even on the night Hughes disappeared.”
Fealty nodded solemnly. “That’s correct. Think of it as our baby monitor. Special Branch always likes to know exactly what’s going on.”
“So you knew the old man had escaped, even before the police arrived.”
“Even better. We helped him get away. Ripped the back door open and frightened him out of his wits.”
Daly gave him a look of surprise.
“It was a calculated risk we took. The old man could have wandered off at any point. At Special Branch, we don’t like losing control of a situation. The decision was made that Hughes needed inpatient care. He was a liability in that cottage. So we planned his escape. It was the only way we could convince Eliza her brother was no longer safe in her care. We figured that separating them for a night or two would have shocked her into agreement.”
“But Hughes managed to shake you off. Noel Bingham was hardly up to the task of keeping track of him.”
Fealty looked pained. “In spite of his drink problem Bingham was loyal. A man to be trusted. But he let Hughes slip through his fingers. Also, we hadn’t counted on the old man befriending Dermot Jordan.”
“You’ve made my police team look like fools,” said Daly bitterly. “You should have disclosed the truth to us at the start.”
“You’ve nothing to regret. Hughes has turned up, along with Devine’s killer. The case is successfully closed.”
“We’ve still Noel Bingham’s murder to investigate.”
“Like I told you earlier. Bingham’s death was a nasty accident. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s your problem, Daly, you think too much.”
“Unlike you desk men at Special Branch.”
“That’s right,” said Fealty with a sudden smile. Success and adrenaline had made him overconfident. “Thinking too much can be bloody dangerous.”
“So who hired Grimes to kill Devine?”
Fealty shrugged his shoulders. “Dissident Republicans? Who knows. The success of our operation was measured according to whether or not we found the man who killed Devine. The media needs the identity of a killer, and so does the public. The rest is speculation. That’s the official line, anyway.”
“What are you afraid of? Upsetting the people who ordered Devine’s death?” Daly suspected that someone in a powerful position was being protected.
“Don’t try and complicate things, Inspector,” warned Fealty.
“A lot still needs sorting out. We need to know if Oliver Jordan was killed to protect a high-ranking mole in the IRA.”
“If you’ve still got questions, you can come to the morgue and ask Sweeney himself,” said Fealty. He behaved as though Daly’s obstinate search for the truth was a disturbance that had to run its natural course.
“Can’t you see, Daly? That’s the problem with investigating the past. There’s always one more damned conspiracy theory lying hidden inside every shocking revelation. If we keep on, we’re going to end up chasing an infinitely improbable and powerful villain, who we’ll never be able to capture because he’s also part of us. Perhaps it’s time you learned to live with a little uncertainty.”
The Special Branch inspector walked off. The tug of tension pulling at one side of his face might have been a grimace or a lopsided grin.
The paramedics were busy helping Dermot Jordan and David Hughes to their feet. The old man was resisting help, refusing to be lifted into the ambulance. Still fighting for his independence.
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” he said. “I need to think.”
Daly had the sense they were still prisoners surrounded by a net of darkness, all of them struggling to find space to think. It was a very crowded net. In a sense, it included every civilian in the land, everyone who trusted in democracy and hoped for peace. He tried to work out how it would all end. Back to the bombs and shootings, to sectarian murder and revenge or into a bright new future of prosperity and forgiveness. He didn’t know. He was left with a hollow sense of hope as he watched Hughes and Dermot support each other and step into the ambulance, the blue siren light dancing across their tired faces.
Daly got to his feet. His own legs drew strength from the distinction he made between good and evil, even though it meant his mind might never rest.
Acknowledgments
I thank my agent, Paul Feldstein, for his kind support and for so diligently protecting me from the physical and emotional realities of publishing a book; Eileen and Kevin for setting their own compass and pointing me in the right direction; my old friend Phelim Cavlan for his mine of encouragement and the deep shifts he clocked up in my company over pints of Guinness; Paul and Kerri, Rhoda and Garry, Nuala and Gerald, Jim and Rosemary, and Charlotte and Martin for their invaluable support; my children—Lucy, Aine, Olivia, and Brendan—for their sustaining laughter, and for showing me that sleep deprivation does have an upside (those long night hours in your company helped think this book into shape); and Frank O’Connor, who listened to my stories and gave as many back. And finally I thank Clare—the secret heart of this book belongs to you.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this book. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Anthony Quinn
Cover design by Mauricio Díaz
ISBN 978-1-4532-5679-4
Published in 2012 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
Acknowledgments
Copyright