Ask No Questions

by Claire Allan

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Ingrid

  There is a pale blue Nissan Almera sitting in the car park at the top of Creggan Country Park. It’s the only car there, but I don’t want to park too close to it. I’m still on edge, and being here on this dark, grey and freezing morning doesn’t help.

  The driver’s door opens and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see it’s Niall, carrying two cups of coffee. He is wrapped up against the elements, just as I am, and he grimaces as he looks up towards the sky.

  I gesture at him to get into the passenger seat of my car. The least we can do is drink our coffee in relative comfort before we set off on our walk.

  ‘Great day for it,’ he says sarcastically as he hands me my coffee and sips from his own.

  ‘I’m not sure this is one of my better ideas,’ I say. ‘Maybe we should reschedule?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Niall laughs. ‘Sure, it’s only a bit of rain. Did your mammy never tell you that you’re not made of sugar and you won’t melt?’

  I smile at the phrase half the mothers in Derry must have used at one stage or another. ‘She did, but she’d also tell me not to be getting into cars with strange men or going out in a storm in case I catch my death of cold.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good thing I got in the car with you and not the other way around, and that I’m not a stranger. Besides, that’s hardly a storm,’ he laughs as we watch a tree bend and shake in the squall, ‘it’s practically a summer’s day for Derry.’

  Niall is upbeat. Almost alarmingly so for 10 a.m. on a stormy Sunday morning when we are about to revisit the scene of one of his greatest childhood traumas. Perhaps the humour itself is a coping mechanism. Laugh it off. Make jokes. It’s how we all coped for decades in this part of the world. It’s how we still cope now.

  I sip my coffee, let the caffeine wind its way into my veins.

  ‘I see the news about Jamesy is out,’ Niall says, cradling his coffee cup in his two hands, looking straight ahead of him.

  ‘Yes. Social media is particularly sewer-like this morning,’ I say.

  ‘People were never going to grieve for that man,’ Niall says. ‘I think it’s healthy for people to have a place to express their emotions.’

  ‘You clearly didn’t see all the comments calling for my head on a block,’ I answer, turning to look at him. ‘That didn’t feel particularly healthy to me. The knives are out. Not to mention a troll account, in Kelly’s name.’

  He is still staring straight ahead, his gaze on the tree, which is shedding more and more leaves with every gust.

  ‘I saw that,’ he says. ‘Nothing but keyboard warriors. I wouldn’t take it seriously. I imagine it will all blow over now that Jamesy is dead.’

  ‘Unless I prove he was innocent, after all,’ I say.

  Niall’s jaw tightens just a fraction.

  ‘Although, I’d guess whoever is threatening me doesn’t want that to happen.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because he was guilty,’ Niall says. ‘I admire your commitment and your sense of righting a great wrong here, but Jamesy Harte was no saint. Don’t let championing his innocence be the hill you die on. If you want my advice, walk away from it all now and it will all be forgotten in a few days. People will move on. Find someone else to spew their hatred about.’

  I shift in my seat. ‘The thing is, I can’t just ignore my gut on this. Something isn’t right about the whole situation and I want to get to the heart of it. Even if we take Jamesy out of the equation, the Dohertys deserve to know the truth. On a personal note, since I am gainfully unemployed as of yesterday, getting to the heart of this would put two fingers up to my former boss.’

  Turning his gaze to mine, Niall places his coffee in the cup holder on my dashboard. ‘Well, I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of Ryan Murray. He’s a slippery fucker if ever I met one. He’d fall into the Foyle and come out with a salmon in his mouth.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you knew him,’ I say, eyebrow raised.

  Niall looks at me incredulously. ‘Come on, Ingrid! Everyone knows Ryan Murray. He’s been sniffing around, acting the big man for years. You want to hear my da about him. He said he wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire. He was only a wee runt when Kelly died. Made a name for himself with all the coverage back then. My da says he’s never done an honest day’s work since.’

  I’m not sure what to say. Ryan may well be on my shit list right now, but I have admired his journalism throughout my career. I don’t want to start an argument about it though, so I ignore the dig and put my half-full coffee cup in the cup holder beside Niall’s.

  ‘Shall we go on our walk now?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure. Okay,’ he says. Just as he opens the passenger door of the car, a gust of wind catches it and threatens to pull it from its hinges. He looks at me to check if I’m really, really sure and I nod, get out of my side of the car and change into my wellies, leaning on the car for balance.

  ‘You don’t let anything get in your way, do you, Ingrid?’ he shouts over the noise of the storm.

  ‘Nope!’ I shout, because it’s much too easy to find excuses not to do things. I can’t let my doubts and fears stop me. Especially not now.

  Another gust of wind catches the tree we have been watching, stripping it of its orange-and-gold leaves. It howls as it carries them, spinning towards us, the high-pitched squeal like that of the banshee.

  ‘I do like that about you, Ingrid Devlin. Your spirit, it’s very appealing,’ he says as he walks beside me.

  I notice he is smiling.

  ‘My spirit? Most people call it a stubborn streak,’ I laugh, but there is something in his words that makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

  ‘Well, I like a stubborn streak. I like someone with determination. I see them as a challenge,’ he says, and there’s no denying this time that there’s something flirtatious in his tone.

  We stop walking and I look at him. There’s a frisson of something between us. A connection that I can’t deny. An attraction that part of me knows is a bad idea and yet, here we are. Together. Conversation flowing between us. Able to banter and laugh even on a day like today, when we’re walking on this path to the place that changed everything.

  ‘Well, I am told I can be very challenging,’ I say, my eyes on his. ‘Always have been, apparently.’

  ‘Yes, I remember that determined wee girl who liked to boss everyone around,’ he says. ‘Even back then. Everyone followed your lead, Ingrid. I don’t know if you even realised it, but it was almost like everyone else was invisible when you were around.’

  His words disarm me. The intensity of his stare. I’m filled with the urge to reach out and touch him. Take his hand. Or put my hand to his cheek.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me the world doesn’t still revolve around me now? I thought I’d maintained my diva qualities.’ It’s an attempt at humour, but I cringe at how cheesy it sounds.

  He pauses. From the look on his face, I guess he’s not sure how to answer me. The moment is lost.

  ‘So, with that in mind, this diva would like to get going before this weather gets any worse,’ I say before he can speak.

  He blinks as if he is bringing himself back into the present day and points in the direction of the reservoir. ‘There’s a new pathway down here now,’ he says, ‘but follow me up through these trees a bit first.’

  Under the cover of the trees, the wind doesn’t seem as loud. The rain is still falling, dripping through what is left of the leaves on the branches and landing in fat ice-cold droplets on the ground, on my clothes, on my face. I’m glad I put my wellies on, because the persistent wet weather of the last few days has left the ground slick and muddy. I tread slowly.

  ‘Do you remember playing here after school?’ Niall asks.

  ‘I didn’t play here all that often. Not after school, anyway,’ I said. ‘My mum was always terrified I’d get into some sort of trouble. Fall into the reservoir, break a bone climbing a tree, something like that. But I do r
emember having picnics here, in the summer. With my parents and a friend or two. The grass was so long it almost reached the top of my legs. I remember the smell of it.’

  ‘It doesn’t smell the same now,’ Niall says. ‘My memory of playing here is just like this, fallen leaves and branches. Mulch beneath our feet. Thick drops of rain, and the smell of the sap and the trees mixed with that of smoke from the coal-fired chimneys. Declan and I, we’d play here most days after school – go home in a state, our clothes mucked to the eyeballs. My poor mother had the washing machine constantly on the go and was forever drying uniforms for us around the radiators or in front of the fire.’

  ‘What sort of things did you play?’ I ask, watching as he looks around him, touching his hand to some of the trees, staring up through the branches to the sky – as if trying to re-familiarise himself with the place.

  ‘All sorts,’ he says. ‘Some days we pretended we were soldiers. Others we were stranded on an island somewhere. Some days we just threw stones or sticks into the rezzie. Or we climbed trees. We had a den, you know.’

  His face is animated as he talks; I can see the traces of the child he was. Wide-eyed with wonder.

  ‘I say it was a den, but really it was just a small clearing and there was a fallen tree, which made for a great bench to sit on. The area was really overgrown, so it was the perfect place to hide, to get cover from the rain. We had a password to get into it, which was ridiculous really, seeing as it was only me and Declan who ever went into it. We were eejits, really.’

  ‘All children are eejits,’ I say. ‘It’s part of their charm. But you never allowed anyone else in? I mean, I understand that girls wouldn’t be allowed, because we were the enemy, but none of your friends from school or the street?’

  Niall shakes his head. ‘No, it was our place. We didn’t want to share. It was like a safe place to go.’ His face clouds with sadness.

  ‘My da,’ Niall says, ‘he’s doing okay now, you know. But he was fond of the drink back then. Probably would be diagnosed with PTSD these days if he wasn’t too stubborn to go and see the doctor about it. You know, some of the things he went through in the Troubles …’

  I knew that Frankie Heaney had a reputation as a hardman. He was someone people didn’t want to get on the wrong side of. Even now. He’d been active during the Troubles, served time for membership of the IRA. He’d done things, seen things that most people could only imagine.

  ‘He was no angel. He’s no angel now, but at the time, he was under a lot of pressure. Trying to police the community, getting grief from others. Not everyone was happy about the IRA calling their ceasefire, you know. There was a lot of fear and mistrust.

  ‘When I look back on it, with adult eyes, I can see that my da was probably terrified of what his position would be in a new Northern Ireland. Would he still be relevant? Would he still have any kind of authority? And the things he’d done, the time he’d served, what was that all about? So, he was angry, and sometimes he was violent with it,’ Niall says.

  An image of two scared little boys flashes into my mind. The things that go on behind closed doors that we never know about. By the sounds of it, what happened to Kelly wasn’t the only thing that had left the Heaney twins traumatised.

  ‘He didn’t know about our den. So it was a safe spot, you know. We’d escape here sometimes when things got really bad at home.’

  There’s silence then, save for the wind and the rain. Niall has finished talking and I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to say in response to that. I reach out and take his gloved hand in mine.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear things were tough,’ I say, knowing it’s woefully inadequate.

  ‘You let it make you or let it break you,’ he says. ‘I chose one path and Declan chose the other. Maybe he’s more like my da than he wants to let on.’

  Niall gives my hand a little squeeze before letting go and turning to walk onwards.

  I pick my way through the leaves, behind him. We’ve not walked far, when his voice rings out.

  ‘Here it is,’ he shouts, and I follow him to where there is the smallest of clearings amid heavy overgrowth of bushes and grass. ‘This was our den,’ he says. ‘It hasn’t aged well.’

  He wanders on a bit, turns and heads a little uphill. He seems lost in thought as he walks around. I wonder what memories are playing through his head.

  I stay where I am and look around the small space, try to imagine it as it was. Look up at the sky, still heavy with dark clouds. The water’s edge is visible from here and I can’t help but stare.

  ‘Careful, Ingrid,’ Niall says, his breath warm in my ear.

  For a moment I think about leaning back onto him, feeling his body against mine.

  ‘You don’t want to slip. Bad things can happen here if you slip,’ he whispers as his hands press down heavily, uncomfortably, on my shoulders.

  His breathing becomes heavier and my blood runs cold as his grasp tightens further.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Declan

  ‘Is that you, son?’ Declan hears his mother as he opens the door and walks in, immediately hit by a wave of heat and the smell of baking.

  ‘It is, Ma,’ he calls back, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the bottom of the bannister.

  His mother will give out to him about leaving his coat there, but he’ll deal with that in his own way. He knows he can sweet talk her. He has always been able to do that.

  ‘Did you smell these scones baking or what?’ she calls, laughing. ‘I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  ‘I just need to look for something upstairs,’ he replies. ‘I shouldn’t be long.’

  He climbs the stairs, goes straight to the room he used to share with his brother. The large mahogany wardrobe is still here, now storing clothes his mother won’t wear again but can’t bear to throw away. Her ‘fancy clothes’, she calls them. Outfits she’s worn to weddings, dances, celebrations. Her own wedding dress is folded in tissue paper in a box on a high shelf. Beside it, shoeboxes are filled with photos, memorabilia, old school reports, newspaper cuttings.

  Declan starts to pull each box down and open them, quickly discarding those that don’t contain what he’s looking for. He hears his mother on the stairs and soon she’s by his side.

  ‘What on earth are you doing? I hope you’re going to clean all that up after yourself!’

  ‘I’m looking for something,’ he tells her, tearing open the lid of another shoebox, only to find it filled with old birthday cards.

  He’s getting frustrated now. He can feel it well up inside him.

  ‘Well, what are you looking for? Maybe I can help you find it before you wreck this house of mine altogether!’

  ‘The time capsules,’ he says. ‘Remember, you made me and Niall do them before the new millennium.’

  ‘The ones you were disgusted to do because you were fifteen and thought you knew everything there was to know about everything?’ she says, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Aye. Those ones,’ he says, probably a little too harshly. He sees the way she winces at his tone, feels immediately guilty. ‘Sorry, Ma. But it’s important.’

  ‘What on earth could be so important about them that you need to storm in here at just gone ten on a Sunday morning and start pulling my house apart?’

  Declan bites back the urge to shout at her. God knows she has been shouted at enough in her life. Memories wash over him of a different time. A different kind of household, where angry voices were a regular feature.

  ‘It’s just something I remembered that I need. To prove a point to someone.’

  She eyes him suspiciously.

  ‘Declan, you’ve not got yourself into some sort of mess, have you? Because I don’t know how much more of that I can take. You’ve been doing well, don’t be going down that road again. All that trouble …’

  The worry lining her face makes him feel guilty for everything he has put her through, but she has to understand it’s not all of his own maki
ng. Things happened and things changed him. Things he has never been able to talk about, because if he did it would blow the whole family apart. He couldn’t be responsible for that.

  ‘I’m not in any bother, Ma,’ he tells her. ‘Honestly. It’s just something I want to get my hands on. You know, Ingrid being around here and all this talk of Kelly Doherty, it’s just made me remember some stuff, you know. From back then. Not bad stuff,’ he hastens to add. ‘But I want to look over a few things anyway.’

  ‘It’s a bad business. No good will come of it,’ she says. ‘And Jamesy Harte dead. Murdered, they say.’ She blesses herself. ‘So much heartbreak.’ She shakes her head. ‘Look, your da will be home from Mass after eleven, if he doesn’t stop to chat to some of his cronies. I’m sure he’ll help you look.’

  ‘I don’t need to be bothering him with this,’ Declan says, because the very last person he wants involved is his da.

  Not, at least, until he is sure what he’s going to do. And he needs to see Niall first. Needs to confront him.

  ‘You know, I think I might have put them up in the attic. Beside the Christmas decorations. I don’t suppose it will be long before we’re taking those down. Your woman at the top of her street will have her tree up come Friday. It’s the same every year. As soon as Halloween is done and dusted, she goes full North Pole. I wouldn’t want to be paying her electricity bill.’

  His ma laughs and he laughs with her, but he’s already thinking he needs to get up into the attic and have a look around.

  ‘Where’s the pole for pulling down that ladder?’ he asks her.

  ‘For the attic? I think it’s in the built-in wardrobes in my room. You don’t really want to be climbing up there, do you?’

  He’s already heading to her bedroom and retrieving the pole with the hook on the end that he will use to haul the folding ladder down from the roof space.

  ‘Would you not just sit and have a cup of tea with me?’ she asks, and he hesitates.