‘I won’t die,’ she said. ‘Not from this.’
That’s not true, she thought. I will die. I will die in pain and humiliation on a hospital ward with tubes and machines wired to me.
‘No, I won’t,’ she said. ‘Stop it. Just bloody stop it.’
Flanagan slapped herself across the cheek. Not hard, but enough for the sting to cut through the clamour in her head.
‘Stop it right now.’
Another slap, sting upon sting, the heat lingering there.
I have to be stronger than this, she thought. Not for me. For Eli and Ruth and Alistair. I have to cope. If I can’t, how will they?
And for Rea Carlisle.
A poor woman who had been blotted out of existence a day ago. Flanagan had to cope so that she could fight for Rea and take whatever justice could be had for her.
There. Calm.
She sat back in the passenger seat. Breathed deep and slow. Smoothed her emotions out. Let time slip past unnoticed.
Until the car’s interior glowed white from headlights behind. She looked into the rear-view mirror, saw the lights die and a suited man climb out of a Jaguar.
David Rainey. He was not a barrister, but she had seen him lurking in courtrooms during various criminal trials, handing notes to whoever had been retained to fight for his client. Slippery as a fish, he was. She watched him lock the car and walk to the house. He did not notice her attention. Once he’d gone inside, she followed.
Graham Carlisle answered the door once again, a scowl on his face. He didn’t speak as he stepped aside to let her enter.
Rainey waited in the reception room, on the seat opposite Ida. Calvin stood against the wall, a vision of discomfort.
‘All right,’ Flanagan said. ‘Shall we begin?’
Graham Carlisle clammed up, gave her nothing. He’d been swimming the previous evening, he said, had arrived home late and gone straight to bed. Ida had been here alone, watching television. She had been worried that she’d not been able to reach her daughter, but her husband had reassured her she would be fine. She followed him to bed, but had been unable to sleep. She had left the house in the early hours and gone to look for Rea.
All of it perfectly reasonable. Flanagan had no cause to doubt the word of either parent. Except for the fear on Carlisle’s face, and the hatred on Ida’s. They sat beside each other on the couch, but might as well have been on different continents.
The solicitor contributed nothing other than to place a voice recorder on the coffee table in the middle of the room.
In her pocket, Flanagan had a photocopy of the picture Lennon had shown her that afternoon. She could produce it now, put Carlisle on the back foot, see if it would shake anything loose. But he was already antagonistic, and any hostility from her would only make him more defensive. And the solicitor would end the conversation immediately. Save it for another time, she thought.
‘Do you know a police officer called Jack Lennon?’ she asked.
‘No, we don’t,’ Carlisle said.
A crease appeared on Ida’s brow.
Flanagan spoke to her. ‘Mrs Carlisle?’
Carlisle said, ‘I told you, we don’t know him.’
‘Mrs Carlisle?’
Carlisle got to his feet. ‘I think I made myself clear, we don’t know any—’
‘I remember him,’ Ida said.
Carlisle opened and closed his mouth, then sat down.
‘Him and Rea were an item. It was for about six months, I think. Maybe five or six years ago. I only met him the once. It was in the upper floor of Castle Court. I was out shopping and I saw them at a table, having a coffee. I went over to say hello. He looked embarrassed. He didn’t say much. Rea never really talked about him until they split up. He treated her very badly.’
‘In what way?’ Flanagan asked. ‘Was he violent?’
Ida shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that. He was just careless with her feelings. You know how some men are.’
Flanagan gave her a soft smile to say, yes, I know.
‘Have you seen or heard from him since that time?’
‘No. Rea never mentioned him since.’
‘What has this police officer got to do with my daughter’s killing?’ Carlisle asked.
‘Maybe nothing,’ Flanagan said. ‘But I know he was in touch with Rea in the last few days.’
‘So he’s a suspect,’ Carlisle said.
Flanagan neither admitted nor denied his assertion. Instead, she asked, ‘Were you aware of a book that Rea found in her uncle’s house?’
Carlisle paled. Ida looked back to the floor.
‘A large scrapbook or a photo album. Possibly a ledger.’
Ida inhaled, her mouth opened. Carlisle put his hand on hers. Squeezed. Ida closed her mouth.
‘Mrs Carlisle?’
‘We don’t know anything about a book,’ Carlisle said.
Flanagan kept her gaze hard on Ida. ‘Mrs Carlisle?’
A pause, then Ida shook her head.
‘Mr Carlisle, did Rea leave a message on your voicemail yesterday afternoon?’
Carlisle stared for a moment, something working behind his eyes. A lie forming. ‘Yes. Morning or afternoon, I can’t remember. Something about a locksmith. I deleted it. You can check my phone if you want.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ Flanagan said, ‘for now, at least. All right. I think that’s enough for this evening. DS Calvin will call by tomorrow morning to take statements from both of you, if that’s convenient?’
Carlisle looked to his solicitor. Rainey nodded.
‘All right,’ Carlisle said. ‘No earlier than nine-thirty, no later than ten.’
‘Of course,’ Flanagan said as she stood to leave.
‘They’re lying,’ Calvin said as the street lights wafted past the car. He kept his attention on the road. Calvin seldom spoke unless he had something useful to say. That was why Flanagan kept him around.
He was a good policeman, but would never rise much higher in rank. Loyal, a hard worker. The kind of cop you wanted on your team to catch your fall. To do the legwork. Flanagan had met his wife, had gone to their baby’s christening at a Church of Ireland service. She doubted he had a religious bone in his body, but she guessed they’d had the infant committed to the church to keep the grandparents happy. Some traditions are hard to break, whether you believe in them or not.
‘Yes,’ Flanagan said. ‘He lied about the message. And they know something about a book, which means Lennon was telling the truth about that, at least.’
‘Do you still fancy him for it?’ Calvin asked.
Flanagan remained silent for a time, then said, ‘Take me to the house.’
26
IDA CARLISLE LISTENED from the kitchen as her husband and his solicitor prepared a statement to be issued to the press overnight. The newspapers had known Rea’s identity since early this morning, but had kept it quiet for the time being. They would lead with it tomorrow morning, and Graham ensured he had a few words ready for them. What a loss this tragedy was to Rea’s immediate and wider family, and asking for privacy at this difficult time.
This difficult bloody time.
What a ridiculous phrase, Ida thought. She had been through many difficult times in her life, as had most people. But not this.
She supposed she should be angry, but she simply didn’t have the emotion to spare. All feeling had been drained from her over the past twenty-four hours, leaving her an empty vessel of bone and skin.
As the police officers had got up to leave, Ida had one question she desperately wanted to ask. Graham gripped her arm the moment she opened her mouth, and she closed it again.
When can we have her body?
It was a simple question, now unanswered.
The young policeman had given a sad smile and mumbled that he was sorry for her loss. The woman officer had said nothing as she left. Ida could see the burden she carried, weighing on her shoulders. Something terrible had happened to that wo
man, just like Ida. She knew in her gut that they shared something painful, but she couldn’t tell what. If she’d been allowed, if she’d had the nerve, she would have embraced the woman officer, let the pain pass between them so they could know each other.
A foolish idea.
‘I’m so sorry for your troubles,’ David Rainey said from the kitchen doorway, startling Ida.
She said thank you, but the words barely escaped her throat. He went to the hall and conferred with her husband in whispers before exiting through the front door.
BBC, UTV, RTE, Belfast Telegraph, the Irish News, the News Letter – every outlet imaginable. They had it covered. Announcing to the world the family wanted privacy in this difficult time.
This difficult fucking time.
‘What?’ Graham asked from the kitchen doorway.
Ida’s hand went to her mouth. Had she spoken the words aloud?
‘Nothing,’ she said.
Graham went to the cupboard below the sink, reached behind the bleach and washing-up liquid, and retrieved the bottle of whiskey. He rinsed a glass under the tap and poured a generous helping. Ida could smell the drink from her seat. He removed his spectacles, tossed them on the table, sat down opposite her and took a mouthful.
She watched him for a time before saying, ‘You told that policewoman you went swimming yesterday evening.’
Graham did not look up from his glass. ‘That’s right.’
‘You told me you were at a party meeting.’
Now he looked up. ‘I misremembered,’ he said.
‘No you didn’t. You lied.’
He tilted his head. His eyes looked bluer than they had in years. ‘Watch what you’re saying, Ida.’
‘Why did you lie?’
He spoke slowly and clearly, as if she were a backward child. ‘Like I said, I misremembered. I was confused. I told you I’d been at a meeting. But when I thought about it, I remembered I’d been to the pool.’
‘You didn’t smell of chlorine when you got home last night. You always smell of chlorine when you come home from swimming. I can’t stick it when you come to bed, that smell. Makes me feel like I’m sleeping in a toilet stall.’
Graham set his glass on the tabletop. He reached across and took her hands in his. His fingers felt dry like kindling. She saw the tiny red cracks in his skin. She saw that he had been biting his nails.
‘Listen to me very, very carefully,’ he said. ‘Are you listening, Ida?’
She looked up from his hands. Saw those same red lines in the whites of his eyes.
He said, ‘Don’t ever question me again. Not in front of other people. Not when we’re alone. Don’t ask me where I’ve been or what I’ve done. Do you understand me?’
She swallowed before she spoke, felt heat in her eyes. ‘Graham, what did you do?’
His hand, hard and flat, slammed into the side of her head. She gripped the table to keep from tumbling to the floor. A storm thundered in her ear.
Graham stood and said, ‘Don’t question me. I won’t tell you again.’
She didn’t notice him leave and close the door. The heat of the blow swelled in her cheek. She closed her eyes and savoured it.
Ida had always known what he was. That he had violence in his heart. She hadn’t known the full truth of it, the horror of his former self, until his tearful confession when they’d knelt and prayed that night a month before their wedding. The night he finally accepted Jesus Christ as his saviour. Maybe she should have run from him then, called the wedding off, braved the storm. But she was already two weeks late, Rea taking root inside her.
And he confessed his sins to Jesus. The Saviour had washed his soul clean. The Graham Carlisle who had done that awful thing had died, the new man was born in his place. They had held each other and cried.
Had that Graham, the old one, returned? Had he been hiding beneath the surface, watching, all these years?
She thought of the policewoman, Flanagan, and the card she’d left behind. The one Ida had taken from the kitchen bin, the two halves she’d hidden at the back of the cupboard.
She thought of the cold, hard black thing her husband kept locked in a safe in their bedroom.
Ida knew he kept it loaded.
27
FLANAGAN LEFT CALVIN in the car, pulled on white forensic overalls in the hall. The light seemed harsh now, bleaching the colour from the walls and floor. The collection of bags and boxes had been removed for inspection, making the place feel emptier than it had in the afternoon.
Her footsteps resonated on the stairs, even with the muting effect of the overshoes. Each step had been painted white over bare wood, now discoloured with age. A waterfall of red had flowed down and dried to a dark muddy brown. An empty space where the body had been, yet somehow Flanagan still felt Rea’s presence, as if she haunted the air around the place where she’d died on the landing, her head hanging over the top step.
Flanagan disliked the term ‘victim’. It was too small a word when it came to murder. One could be the victim of a pickpocket or a computer hacker. But when a life was taken, the world needed a different kind of definition, not only for the person killed, but for those left behind. The devastation of it. She had known families destroyed by the killing of a loved one. Depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, even suicide. For every life taken, many more were obliterated by the fallout.
Seven or eight years ago, as a detective sergeant, Flanagan had investigated the murder of a man by a boy he fostered, who had beaten him to death in his own bedroom. Eighteen months after the sentencing of the boy, the dead man’s widow travelled to a beach on the Ards Peninsula, undressed, and walked into the sea. Her body was washed up on rocks days later. If Flanagan had her way, the boy she’d arrested and seen prosecuted for the man’s killing would have stood trial again for the wife’s murder.
Even through the face mask, Flanagan smelled the metallic, meaty odour of violent death. The atmosphere heavy with it. She climbed to the top of the stairway, careful where she put her feet, avoiding the red. At the top she had to hold onto the banister and swing one foot to the other side of the thickening pool, followed by the other.
Dark up here. She found the light switch, saw the spatter on the walls, turned her gaze towards the rear bedroom. The door had been forced. The blackness beyond as deep as a lake. She reached inside, searched the wall with her fingertips until she felt the switch through the thin membrane of the surgical glove.
The light filled every part of the room. The old desk at the centre, the noticeboard and the map on the wall. A chair and nothing else.
Flanagan entered.
Lennon had told her about the book. Rea’s parents had denied any knowledge. In spite of herself, she believed Lennon.
The desk had been salvaged from a school, by the look of it. The floorboards creaked as she crossed the room. She opened the drawer. Empty as she’d expected. She slipped her hand inside, felt the farthest corners, and underneath the desktop, searching for anything that might have been secreted there. Her fingers found nothing.
Hard to believe that a man had lived here until less than a fortnight ago and left so little of himself behind. And this room, so glaringly empty.
Flanagan imagined the book, this journal of the dead that Lennon spoke of. She pictured a man hunched at this desk, poring over the pages, reliving the horrific acts.
Could it be true?
True or not, the desire to be away from this place surged in on Flanagan. As she manoeuvred over the bloodstains once more, she felt an urge to apologise to Rea for her intrusion, as she always did at murder scenes. Someone had died here, alone, and now Flanagan invaded that place when it was too late to do the victim any good.
She left the overalls in the hall and found Calvin waiting for her at the garden gate, her mobile phone in his outstretched hand.
‘A message from Ladas Drive,’ he said. ‘Jack Lennon’s been trying to reach you. He wants you to call him back.’
Flanag
an took the phone from him, saw that Calvin had already keyed in the number for her. All she had to do was press call.
She waited long enough to be sure she was about to be redirected to voicemail. Then he answered.
‘Yeah,’ he said, his voice sleep blurry.
‘This is Flanagan,’ she said.
‘Who?’
‘DCI Serena Flanagan. You left a message for me.’
‘Oh,’ he said. She heard the sound of his lips smacking, trying to gather some moisture in his mouth. ‘Yeah,’ he said, fumbling his words, slow as they were. ‘I wanted to talk to you. To tell you something. I got a phone call.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Flanagan said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, yeah, I’ve had a couple of drinks, but I need to—’
‘Talk to me in the morning,’ she said. ‘When you’re sober.’
Flanagan hung up and put the phone in her pocket. She turned to Calvin who waited at the driver’s side of the car.
‘Take me back to Ladas Drive,’ she said.
Flanagan slipped into bed beside her husband at one in the morning, still wearing her work shirt. Alistair grumbled and pulled the duvet tight up under his chin and resumed snoring.
Exhausted when she arrived home, she had fixed herself a gin and tonic, Hendrick’s with cucumber, but found after a mouthful that she didn’t have the stomach for it. The ice rattled in the enamel sink as she poured it away.
They had bought the old farmhouse outside Moira twelve years ago, just before they married. It had taken eighteen months to renovate the place, she and Alistair doing much of the work themselves, learning the required skills as they went. Despite the stress of the project, she looked back on it now as the happiest time of her life. She a detective sergeant working her way through the ranks of the newly formed Police Service of Northern Ireland, and Alistair teaching history at a Lisburn secondary school. It took every penny they had, but they didn’t mind the sacrifice.
As Flanagan climbed the stairs, she remembered her husband sanding the banister, proud of the blisters and calluses he’d gained. His hair pure black, not washed through with grey as it was now.
Eli and Ruth lay still and silent in their beds. They were both young enough to insist on their bedroom doors being left open a crack, and Flanagan could stand in one spot on the landing, watching them sleep. Ruth with the ugly bear an aunt had given her four Christmases ago, Eli with his legs hanging out of the bed.
04-The Final Silence Page 13