The Final Silence

by Stuart Neville

  ‘I understand,’ Lennon said. ‘But the longer you keep your focus on me, the less chance you have of catching up with Monaghan. If he kills again, it’ll be your cross to bear.’

  ‘I have plenty of crosses,’ she said, leading him away. ‘One more won’t break me.’

  45

  LENNON SAT ON a hard plastic chair in the corner of the room, eyes closed, head back, pain resonating within his skull. He listened to Flanagan pace circles around the table that stood at its centre. Upon the table, the book, open, its secrets spilling out.

  ‘How much of it did you read?’ Flanagan asked.

  ‘Only a page or two,’ Lennon said, opening his eyes. ‘Enough to get the idea. You?’

  She ceased her march, stared somewhere far away. ‘All of it,’ she said.

  ‘How bad?’

  She shook her head. ‘The worst I’ve ever seen. Not all of it is coherent. Some of it’s just lunatic screeds, but there’s enough detail there to get the picture.’

  ‘It could be some sort of fantasy. He might have seen reports of missing persons in the press and made up stories for himself.’

  Flanagan looked sideways at Lennon. ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  She exhaled, a long and despairing hiss from her chest. ‘We’ll get DNA samples from a good number of the entries, mostly off fingernails. Even if the bodies can’t be recovered, family members can be tested for matches. At least there’ll be some resolution for them.’

  ‘But he’s still out there,’ Lennon said. ‘Somewhere.’

  ‘Howard Monaghan’s last passport expired two years ago.’ Flanagan resumed her pacing. ‘His driving licence a year before that. He hasn’t had a vehicle registered to him for three years, hasn’t completed a Self Assessment tax return in five, or paid National Insurance. No credit history, one bank account that hasn’t been touched in a decade, the last time he showed up on the electoral roll was the late nineties. This man, the Sparkle you call him, has been gradually disappearing for years.’

  ‘What about the house he was in?’ Lennon asked.

  ‘Three days after Raymond Drew died, he walked into the letting agent’s office with a cash deposit, three months’ rent, a reference from a previous landlord who doesn’t exist, and signed the rental contract with someone else’s name. He showed them a counterfeit driving licence and a stolen bank statement. I have to assume he wanted to watch his friend’s house, see if he could get in and take the book. Calvin had knocked on the door when he was canvassing the neighbours for witnesses, but there was no answer. He assumed the house was unoccupied.’

  ‘Did you find anything else there?’

  She sat down on the chair beside Lennon.

  ‘There was a key to the front door of the house Rea died in. It looked new, freshly cut, with a locksmith’s tag on it. And that lock was changed only last week.’

  ‘So who gave it to him?’ Lennon asked.

  Flanagan had no answer. She stared at the window opposite, her eyes distant.

  ‘Night before last,’ Lennon said, ‘when I tried to call you. I was trying to tell you he’d phoned me.’

  ‘You were drunk,’ she said.

  ‘Even so, you should have listened to me.’

  ‘What difference would it have made?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably none,’ Lennon said. ‘Either way, he’s going to kill again. And soon.’

  ‘So you say.’

  He turned his head. She kept her gaze forward, her face expressionless.

  ‘That’s what he told me,’ Lennon said. ‘You’ve seen what’s in that book. You saw what he did to Roscoe. You saw what he did to Rea.’

  ‘All I saw of Mr Patterson was you kneeling over him with blood on your hands. You’re still the most direct link I have to Rea Carlisle’s death. Don’t kid yourself, Inspector. You haven’t wriggled out of this yet. You’re still a suspect.’

  She turned to look at him.

  ‘You’re the only person I found at the scene. Maybe this Howard Monaghan, the Sparkle, did all these things in the book. But you turn up at the scenes of two murders and I haven’t seen a hair on the Sparkle’s arse. I’ve only your word for any of this, and right now, your word isn’t worth two shits.’

  Lennon asked, ‘After all that’s happened today, you still think I did that to Rea?’

  Before she could answer, a knock at the door.

  ‘Come,’ she said, not taking her eyes off Lennon.

  Gracey opened the door, a sheet of A4 printed paper in his hand. ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am.’

  Flanagan turned her attention to the doorway. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘You were called to Deramore Gardens this afternoon.’ Gracey did not look up from his page.

  ‘That’s right,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘Well, just going through the incident reports for today, there was a car hijacking a couple of streets away. A young woman was getting into her Vauxhall Corsa. Someone pulled her to the ground, grabbed the keys from her hand, and took off in the car. Her head got a bit of a bang on the pavement, but she gave a pretty good description of the assailant.’

  Now he looked at Lennon, only for a moment.

  ‘Small athletic build, maybe five-six, aged around sixty, wearing a vest and trousers, dark stains on the vest.’

  Flanagan sat silent for a few seconds, then said, ‘All right, thank you. I’ll want to talk to the victim.’

  ‘I’ll set it up,’ Gracey said. He nodded and left, pulling the door closed behind him.

  Flanagan did not turn back to Lennon. ‘You’re still a suspect,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ Lennon said. ‘Now, do you want to go after this piece of shit?’

  Flanagan nodded. ‘Yes, I think I will. Where do I start?’

  ‘With Graham Carlisle,’ Lennon said.

  46

  ‘YOU BLOODY BASTARD,’ Graham Carlisle said.

  The Sparkle smiled. ‘I knew you’d be angry,’ he said. ‘That’s why it had to be here.’

  They stood on one of the boat-like platforms that rose through the central atrium of Victoria Square, escalators and spiralling staircases all around them, rising upwards to the shopping mall’s glass dome and observation deck. The shops had closed two hours ago, but families, couples and teenagers milled all around them, coming and going from the cinema and the restaurants. Their clamouring voices reverberated in the cavernous space, ringing in the Sparkle’s ears, eating into his skull.

  A remarkable clarity had settled within him over the last few hours as he fled to his home, washed and changed. As if his life, and the world around him, had suddenly come into focus. As if cataracts had been removed from his eyes. He had never felt more rational, more purposeful.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the end. He had devised a plan, so simple, a way to survive. All he had to do was hold his nerve. Let everyone else fall to pieces, like Graham.

  And if this was the end, the final implosion of his universe, then it wasn’t so bad.

  ‘You didn’t have to hurt her,’ Graham said, his voice quivering with rage and sorrow. ‘I just wanted the photo and the book. That was all. You didn’t have to do that.’

  When Graham had come to him with the key to the house, the Sparkle had been thrilled. He had been watching Raymond’s home ever since he’d rented the place opposite. Waiting for an opportunity to go in and take what was his. Then Graham had tracked him down, given him the key, told him to get his filth out of that house, never show his face near there again, and it had seemed a gift.

  But Graham was right, he hadn’t had to touch Rea. Now look where he was.

  ‘Maybe not,’ the Sparkle said. ‘But it’s too late now.’

  Graham smelled of alcohol. His suit seemed to hang loose on him, as if it belonged to a bigger man, and his shirt needed ironing. A black shape lurked in the waistband of his trousers.

  The Sparkle asked, ‘Are you going to shoot me?’

  Graham’s red eyes f
lickered. He wet his lips with his tongue. ‘I should. I should blow your bloody brains out for what you did. And I might. If you force me to defend myself.’

  ‘Here? In front of all these people?’

  Graham straightened, tried to look taller. ‘I might.’

  The Sparkle shook his head. ‘I don’t think you will. If you shoot me, everyone will see you, they’ll recognise you. And you’ll be finished. When it comes down to it, you’re just too selfish to sacrifice yourself. Aren’t you?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Graham said, stuttering over the F, his mouth seemingly unused to such dirty words. ‘What did you call me here for?’

  ‘I need your help.’

  Graham’s jaw dropped open. ‘Why would I help you? After what you’ve done, why would I lift a finger for you?’

  ‘To return the favour.’

  Graham’s head shook, anger turning to confusion on his face.

  The Sparkle sighed. ‘You asked me for help. You asked me to get that book, and then the photograph. I did what you wanted. Or I tried, anyway.’

  Graham took a step closer, the anger rising again. ‘I didn’t ask you to kill my daughter.’

  The Sparkle felt spittle on his cheeks. He looked over the railing, down to the concourse below. Two uniformed cops strolled among the people, eating frozen yogurt from paper tubs.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s you and me both go down there and talk to those police officers. We’ll tell them what we did. We’ll tell them you wanted that photograph so you could save your own skin. I can say, honest to God, officer, he didn’t mean for her to die. Will we do that?’

  Graham’s fists grabbed at the Sparkle’s clothes, pushed him back against the rail. ‘Shut your mouth,’ he hissed.

  ‘And then we could tell them about what we did to that taxi driver when we were boys. You feel so bad about it, why not get it off your chest? Come on, let’s go down there together and talk to them.’

  Another shove. ‘I said, shut your fucking mouth.’

  ‘Graham, Graham, Graham.’ The Sparkle put his hands on the other man’s shoulders. ‘People are looking.’

  ‘Let them fucking look.’

  ‘They’ll have phones. They might start taking pictures.’

  One more push, no strength behind it, and Graham backed away. ‘So what do you want?’

  The Sparkle glanced over his shoulder. The cops were moving on. They dropped their tubs and plastic spoons in a litter bin.

  ‘I need to run,’ he said. ‘They know who I am. They have the photograph. And the book.’

  ‘Oh, Christ.’ Graham’s shoulders rose and fell. His face paled.

  ‘I’ve no passport any more. I can’t travel abroad. I need to go over the border, down south.’

  ‘They have the photo? With you and me in it?’

  ‘That’s right. And the book.’

  ‘Oh God, what am I going to do? I’m finished. Oh Jesus, I’m finished. What’ll I do?’ Graham went to the railing and leaned on it.

  ‘Stop panicking, for a start. That’s all they have to connect us. For all the cops know, we haven’t seen each other since that photo was taken. The book’s my concern. You’ve committed no crimes. Not unless I tell them otherwise.’

  ‘But my career. When the papers get hold of this, I’m done.’

  ‘But you won’t go to prison. If I get away, the worst you’ll have to face is a scandal and an early retirement. If I get away.’

  Graham covered his eyes with his hands. His shoulders jerked and shuddered. ‘My little girl died for this,’ he said, the words choked between sobs of self-pity.

  The Sparkle had the urge to spit on him. Such a pathetic man. So weak. Had he any balls, he would have gone straight to the cops with the book, and his daughter would be alive.

  ‘You can cry all you want when I’m gone,’ the Sparkle said. ‘Now pull yourself together and listen to me.’

  Graham turned his wet face to the Sparkle’s. ‘What kind of animal are you?’

  Quick as water on glass, the Sparkle reached down to Graham’s waistband, seized the pistol in his right hand, hugged him around the shoulders with his left arm. He kept the gun pressed flat against Graham’s soft stomach, hidden from view.

  ‘Stop your crying and listen to me or I’ll blow a hole through your gut right in front of all these people. You don’t have the nerve to do it, but I do. That’s the only difference between you and me. I’ve got the strength. You haven’t.’

  Graham wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

  ‘Are you listening?’ the Sparkle asked.

  Graham nodded.

  ‘Good. I need money. Enough to live on for a year or two. I have a bit hidden away, sterling and euro, but it’s not enough. I want fifty thousand euro in cash.’

  ‘I can’t,’ Graham said, his jowls quivering as he shook his head. ‘It’s too much.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’ The Sparkle jabbed at Graham’s belly with the pistol’s muzzle. ‘You’ve got ten times that, probably more. You want me out of the way, you’ll hand it over.’

  ‘Christ. All right. I’ll need a few days.’

  ‘We don’t have a few days. I want it here, tomorrow, at twelve. You show up a minute later, I’m going to take your gun and start shooting till the police get here. Women, children, I don’t care. I’ve nothing to lose. And when the cops arrive, I’m going to lower the gun, like a good boy, and I’m going to tell them everything.’

  He leaned close, his lips against Graham’s ear. ‘Everything,’ he whispered. ‘Every dirty little secret.’

  Graham whined. ‘I can’t. I just can’t.’

  ‘You know I’ll do it. And every dead mummy, and every dead baby, they’ll be on your head. And everyone will know you could’ve stopped it. And when I’ve told them, I will end it all.’

  The Sparkle looked around, slipped the pistol into his coat pocket, and stepped back.

  ‘Tomorrow at noon,’ he said. ‘Not a minute later.’

  He walked away through the chattering crowd, almost tasting the clarity of it all.

  The Sparkle had never felt so well. The Sparkle had never shone so bright.

  47

  LENNON’S MOBILE RANG. Number withheld.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Hello again, Jack.’

  Lennon sat down on the plastic-covered couch. After Flanagan had let him go, he’d returned to the apartment Roscoe Patterson had given him the use of. It felt strange knowing the owner was dead, the air inside somehow different, colder. Now that he was no longer being chased by Flanagan, he could use his own mobile again. The first call he’d made had been to Bernie McKenna. It had gone straight to voicemail.

  Now this.

  He listened to the Sparkle’s breathing. After a few seconds, he asked, ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just to talk. I was a bit emotional this afternoon. I wasn’t myself.’

  ‘I didn’t think killing bothered you that much.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me at all.’ Lennon could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Not after all this time. But it does get my blood up. It’s a dizzy feeling, like going on a fairground ride. You know. You’ve killed people.’

  Lennon swallowed. ‘Yes, I have. But I didn’t get any pleasure out of it.’

  A small, childish laugh. ‘Oh, Jack. See, that’s what people like you never understand. I didn’t get any pleasure from killing all those people. I never killed anyone for fun.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because it was . . . necessary.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To take what I needed from those people, to let the wicked out, it was necessary to kill them. Killing was a part of it, but it was never the point. Do you understand?’

  ‘No, I don’t. And I never will.’

  ‘Of course not. But don’t worry, I’ll be gone soon enough. You won’t have to think about it any more.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘Far away where you can’t touch me. Not you or a
nybody else.’

  ‘You’ve no passport,’ Lennon said. ‘It’s too hard to fake one now. You can’t get out of Ireland. You can only go south across the border. How long do you think you can hide out down there?’

  ‘As long as I need to.’

  ‘And what happens when you want to kill again? What if you slip up? You’re not a young man. How long can you keep doing this?’

  ‘As long as I need to. Anyway. Must go. I just wanted to say goodbye.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll see me again. Maybe sooner than you think.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Maybe we’re getting close to you.’

  ‘And maybe not. Whichever, you’d better make your move soon or I’ll be gone. Bye-bye, Jack.’

  Click.

  Lennon dropped the phone on the coffee table. It spun away, its display dimming. He thought of Graham Carlisle and Serena Flanagan, and of Rea, and how she hadn’t deserved to die that way.

  He thought about the feel of Ellen’s hand in his, her arms around his shoulders, and how he would kill to get her back. If it was necessary.

  48

  IDA CARLISLE ATE toast at her kitchen table, alone, in only the light that filtered through the door’s glass panels. She had slathered the bread with butter, yet it felt dry and tasteless as dust on her tongue.

  Graham had not come home.

  No more than an hour, he’d said. Now it drew close to eleven, and he was still out there somewhere, doing whatever he did. How many secrets did he keep? How many lives did he have? One more than he deserved, she knew that much.

  He had taken his gun with him. She had heard the heavy clank of the safe’s door closing up in their bedroom. Once he’d left, she checked, and yes, it was gone.

  Ida was relieved, in a way. She had gone up there several times today, keyed in the combination, and lifted the plastic case out. She had flipped open the latches with her thumbs and found it nestled there in the foam, run her fingertips across its flank, and felt a hateful surge low down in her belly. This afternoon, while Graham was downstairs with the solicitor, she had even lifted the pistol out of its case. She could still feel the weight of it in her hand.