Conlon didn’t react. These kinds of details did not work on hardened Provos. They’d learned to believe it was all justified, gunning men down in front of their children, blowing up kids who got in the way. All part of their tinpot war.
‘Now, what I’m thinking is, Sean – there’s a lot of Republicans in this town would love to know who killed Paddy Dunne. Popular fella, he was. Not to mention that prolonging the hunger strike killed off another six men. So if the same person who did that was also at the scene of John O’Hara’s murder, I’m thinking someone could join the dots quite easily. Someone who knew exactly which man was sent to shoot John O’Hara the other night, for example.’
Silence. The man’s eyes narrowing over the table, focusing now, although still not sitting up straight. ‘No comment.’
‘I can help you, Sean.’
‘I want a lawyer.’
‘Aye, you’ll get one. I just want to know your thoughts about this wee matter first.’
‘No. Fucking. Comment. Are you deaf?’
‘I’m not, no, and I’m not blind either. Those are the same shoeprints.’
‘Doesn’t prove anything. Not if the shoes are gone.’
‘What if I said there was a witness? To the O’Hara killing.’
Sean opened his mouth, then shut it again. Careful, careful. ‘If you’d a witness, Sergeant, you’d be doing this right, with a lawyer and another pig in here and the tape recorder running.’
‘Maybe you’re right, Sean. It could be we can’t prove it. It could be there’s no point even trying, as you’d only get a sharp lawyer and walk. So here’s what I’m thinking – I can make this go away. This . . . link.’ He laid his hands on the two bits of paper. ‘The lab might spot the connection, but even if they do, we don’t have a name for the 1981 killing. So what would be the point? And who has the time? Sure aren’t we up to our eyes in murders, never mind trying to find who shot some Provo five years ago? No, we’re not too bothered about Mr Paddy Dunne. But I think some fellas in this town are very bothered. I’m thinking they’d love to see these bits of paper I have here.’
Conlon licked his lips. He didn’t know where this was going and didn’t like that one bit. His voice was low. ‘What do you want?’
Bob leaned back. Job done, and the joy that flooded you when you’d broken them, it was so bright and harsh he was nearly afraid of it. A man could get hooked on that. ‘Oh, nothing much, Sean. We can’t prove it, as we both agree. I’m thinking more of a wee favour. One favour and I’ll make sure no one follows up this wee link I’m after spotting here.’
‘A favour. What?’
‘Oh, I don’t need one right now. Who knows when I might? Just be ready, Sean. Just be ready and remember it was Sergeant Bob Hamilton made this all go away.’
Chapter Sixteen
It didn’t seem possible, but the north beach was even windier than the rest of the island. Paula could hardly close the door of the jeep when they parked up. It was a white, wishbone-shaped arc of sand, the sea that ate at it grey and forbidding. Beyond, nothing but the Atlantic.
They made their way to a small collection of wooden sheds, soaked in decades of saltwater and rain. Paula and Rory didn’t speak as they crossed the beach – it wasn’t possible to be heard over the wind. The white sand crunched under their boots. The shed was unlocked, and inside was at least slightly warmer than the beach, if dark and comfortless. The wooden walls and floor were damp, and the seaweed-slippy place for a boat to rest was empty. Rory turned on a small torch and they took in the rest of the room, as the wind moaned outside – a desk made from an old door, an upturned paint tin for a chair, and, incongruously, a small laptop sitting on the desk, with a thin layer of dust on it. ‘They never kept the boat here,’ he explained. ‘It was on the beach near their place, usually. But it’s gone now.’
Paula had spotted a sleeping bag in the corner, a thermos beside it. ‘Look,’ she nodded. ‘He must have been staying here. I wonder why, it’s freezing.’ A row with Fiona, perhaps? Or hiding out in the days since they’d gone missing? She peered in the corners, the light of the torch failing against the dark – silted-up sand, a few shells, a discarded loaf of the local bread. Fish bones. A thought was crystallising in her head, nasty but clear-edged. He’d killed her. Matt had killed Fiona – in the kitchen of the lighthouse, maybe some argument or accident even, that explained the blood – and then he’d hidden here, before giving up and taking the boat out. To where? Could you make it to the mainland in this weather? But what did that have to do with Enviracorp?
Something else was registering on her senses. ‘Um . . . can you smell that?’
Rory’s jaw had tightened. ‘A dead fish, maybe.’
But it seemed more than that. An animal stink. Paula felt fear run through her, anchoring her to the earth. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
Rory ran his torch around the walls, casting crazy shadows, and the beam fell on a large plastic container, the sides closed with clasps. The kind you’d use to keep files in, or children’s toys. He hesitated a moment, and she nodded him on: open it. The noise of the clasps was loud in the small place, like gunshots. He took something out, turning it over in his hands, as if trying to figure out what it was. Paula heard the rustle of plastic. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
Paula went closer to look. Inside the trunk were lots of small plastic bags, ziplocked and neatly stacked. Inside those seemed to be . . . she could only describe them as specimens. What looked like a dead mouse, its features pressed flat against the plastic. A puffin, stiff with saltwater, its colourful beak grotesque under the wrapping. Something bigger underneath, that Paula was afraid to look at. ‘Is it . . . ?’
‘A cat,’ said Rory faintly. ‘Etta Baxter lost hers two weeks back.’
‘Is he meant to keep these here?’ Calm yourself, Maguire. Matt was an ecologist. Taking samples was probably part of his job. They were obviously dead when he found them. Of course they were.
‘No. They’re meant to be at Enviracorp.’ Rory stepped back, putting down the bag, wiping a hand on his waterproof trousers, as if disgusted.
‘So, what . . . what’s the matter?’
Rory had frozen, his torch pointing up into the dark recesses of the ceiling. ‘Christ. Did you see this?’
She whirled around. In the light beam, the letters looked bold and clear. Red paint – yes, it was paint, that’s all it was – on the black walls. She spelled it out to herself, trying to sound calm. ‘Blood Tide. What does that mean?’
‘No idea. There’s more.’ Rory moved the torch down to some smaller writing. Again, it was all neat and readable, which made it more disturbing somehow. A blood tide is coming. The sea is full of blood.
Paula was willing Rory to say something, anything, explain it away as an island thing, an in-joke, a phrase standing in for something innocent, but he just stood, holding the beam up, explaining nothing. ‘Holy Christ,’ he said, after a while. ‘He was losing it. He’d lost the plot.’
Paula just stared at it. ‘Um . . . We’ll need to protect this scene until we can get forensics over. Have you any police tape?’
‘You don’t think we should gather it all up, for safe-keeping like?’
‘No. They’ll need to take pictures. They’ll need to see . . . what it’s like.’ She wasn’t sure a picture would capture how chilling it was, those words on the damp black wood, the wind howling and worrying outside.
‘Shh.’ Rory caught her arm. Even through the fabric she could feel that his gloved hands were freezing. ‘What’s that noise?’
‘Shit. Shit, shit, shit.’
It was the first time she’d seen Rory show any emotion. He hadn’t even blinked when the half-dead sailor was washed up, but this – the huge grey seal that had crawled onto the beach near Matt’s boatshed – seemed to have shifted something in him. ‘Is it hurt?’ called Paula.
She was staying well back, knowing that animals this size could easily lash out when in pain. It must have been two metres long, its huge body a hundred shades of grey and black and white, like the stones scattered on the beach. A low keening sound was coming from it, as it shifted on its front flippers on the wet sand. The eyes, normally inky black, were filmed over with some kind of milky residue.
‘Something’s wrong,’ muttered Rory. ‘A seal. A fecking seal this time. This is not . . .’
‘What?’ She was shouting; she could hardly hear him. The wind was so loud here, down on the exposed beach, and the waves crashed onto it not twenty paces away. ‘Has he beached himself?’
‘He needs a vet!’ shouted Rory. ‘Usually we get someone over from the aquarium on the mainland, and they rehabilitate the animal.’
‘Can they even get out here?’
He said nothing, looking out at the swirling waves. Paula clutched her hood against her head, hearing her own blood over the roar outside. ‘Rory?’
‘I’m thinking.’ He turned. ‘We need to get Rainbow.’
‘Rainbow?’ Who the hell was Rainbow? Was it even a person?
He ignored her, trudging up the beach, feet crunching on the shingle. Paula followed him, the wind stinging any bit of exposed flesh, thinking in the vague depths of her mind: God, I hope he hasn’t lost it as well.
Chapter Seventeen
‘Er, Rory? Where are we going? What’s happening?’
He was driving fast, so fast that Paula was pressed against the side of the jeep as he spun round the island’s narrow, grass-infested roads. He kept his eyes fixed forward. ‘I need to get someone to take care of the seal. He’s sick, we can’t get the vet over in time – so I need someone who knows animals.’
‘And there’s someone on the island?’
‘Aye. Sort of.’ He’d turned in at a gate Paula hadn’t noticed on the way over, hidden in overgrown hedge, high and forbidding. He rolled down the window and stuck his arm out, pressing an intercom that was also hidden in the bushes. It looked very swanky for the island. There was a buzz and she heard him shout, ‘It’s me. I need your help. There’s been another one.’
Rainbow, as it turned out, was the first name of Dr Monroe of Enviracorp, as Paula saw when she came shuffling down her driveway a few minutes later. She was bundled up in black waterproofs and carrying a small case, similar to the one that Anne the forensics officer had. Her eyes skipped over Paula, who was feeling thoroughly confused, saying to Rory: ‘What is it? A whale?’
‘Seal. He’s in a bad way.’
Her face was set in hard lines. ‘Right. Take me to him.’
As Rory started the car, ramping up to the same reckless speed, Paula looked between them. ‘Dr Monroe? I’m sorry, are you a vet or something?’
She kept her eyes on the road. ‘I was a marine biologist. A long time ago.’
‘And what’s the matter with the seal?’
Neither of them answered. They had reached the beach now, and they all jumped out into the sand-blasting wind. Paula felt she should go too, to bear witness somehow, even if she could do nothing to help. The seal was still there, slumped on his side again, eyes shut.
‘Is he dead?’ Rory asked, over the wind. They all had to hold down their hoods against it, and Paula wondered again about the ferry. Surely it would run. It had to run. She’d get away, back to Maggie.
‘Not quite.’ Rainbow approached the seal without fear, her bare hand out, and he let her put it on his large, wet head. One eye opened, and the whole body seemed to convulse, as if he was trying to move. A flipper waved ineffectually. Rainbow side-stepped it and examined the large gash on the animal’s side. ‘He’s been fighting. Other seals, I suppose.’
Paula had never heard of seals fighting. ‘Is that normal?’
‘Well. Normal has quite a wide remit around here.’ Rainbow ran some more checks, pressing her face against the seal’s side to listen to his breath, opening the other eye. Paula held herself tense, as the seal moaned and twisted, but he didn’t seem to have the strength to do anything.
Finally, Rainbow turned to Rory and shook her head. Held her hand out. ‘I’ll do it.’
Rory sagged slightly, and felt under his coat. Paula was startled to see him hand over a gun. She didn’t even know he carried one; most Southern Irish officers didn’t, unlike in the North where they were still routinely issued. Rainbow held it with expertise, as if she was used to weapons, and turned to the animal – Paula suddenly realised what was going to happen but didn’t have time to brace herself – and then the bang echoed across the beach, and the seal slumped further down onto the sand. There was very little blood. His eyes darkened, and he was still.
Rainbow handed the gun back to Rory. ‘Damn shame. One of the biggest I’ve seen here. See if you can get Paddy or someone to drag the body out to sea. That’s the best way for it to happen.’
Rory took the gun back, and Paula saw with surprise he was almost crying. He glanced at her, defiant. ‘It’s not fair. They never hurt anyone. They’re innocent, and then they have to die like this. It isn’t right.’
Rainbow was kneeling down in the wet, yielding sand, pressing her fingers into the dead animal’s forehead and muttering something to him. A kind of blessing? An apology?
‘What’s her deal?’ asked Paula, leaning in so Rory could hear her. ‘She’s done this before?’
‘She used to work at Seaworld in the States,’ said Rory, his voice thick. ‘Till one day she realised what it was doing to the whales. Keeping them in there. I don’t know if she ever got over the guilt, so she does her best for the wildlife round here. And if we need to put one down humanely, she’s the best. She never hesitates.’
Paula watched the woman. Thinking of the samples in the shed, the shut-up factory, the mysterious report. They listen.
‘Listen, I don’t think we should mention what we found here to anyone,’ she said pointedly, keeping her voice low. ‘Or the – rest of it. Not until we can get it bagged up and photographed. OK?’
Rory just shrugged. ‘I’ll put some tape up. Dunno what else we can do.’
The woman pressed her head, briefly, against the animal’s, eyes shut, then stood back up, all business again. ‘You should come and have tea at my place. It helps to sit a while, after something like this. Let’s go now.’ It seemed impossible to argue with that, so they followed her back to the jeep and all climbed in in silence.
Paula looked back at the woman in the mirror, and saw there was a smear of blood on her white forehead.
Bob
1987
‘Sergeant Hamilton! You’re wanted.’
He looked up from his groaning desk at the young admin girl. He already had two murders and a pipe bomb to deal with that week; he didn’t need anything else. ‘What?’
‘That shooting earlier, the paratrooper killed at the checkpoint?’
‘Not my case.’
‘But she’s asking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘The woman they arrested.’
A woman?
Then the interview room downstairs, and Margaret Maguire inside. Bob never swore, but he almost did then. Anderson, the arresting officer, was a big ignorant bigot from the Bible Belt. ‘Are you mad? That’s Maguire’s wife!’
Anderson shrugged his meaty shoulders. ‘Found her with the body. Just a precaution. Taig, isn’t she?’
Bob banged open the door, making clear with a look that Anderson would be back shovelling cow dung in County Wherever for this. ‘Margaret, are you all right?’
She was covered in blood. All over her face, her hands, her white blouse and grey skirt. She was staring down at her hands, where it was ingrained around her pretty pink nails. His heart failed. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘It’s not mine. They .
. . they shot him. I was going through a checkpoint and I gave him my licence then next thing I know he’s down. Only a wee lad, nineteen if he’s a day.’
‘Was it a sniper?’
‘Aye. Maybe. I don’t know.’ She looked up, her blue eyes fierce. ‘He died in my arms. In my arms. Asking for his mummy back in Birmingham or wherever. How is this right?’
He felt a stab of fear for her. What she’d done, it was enough for the IRA to start looking at you. In the seventies, a mother of ten had helped a dying soldier, shot on her doorstep, and been Disappeared for it. They’d never even found her body.
‘And then your lot drag me in . . . my husband’s a police officer, I told them, but they hear a Catholic name and here we are.’ Tears welled in her eyes – angry tears. ‘They searched me, Bob. I was just going to work.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They’ll be dealt with, I promise.’ And when PJ found out they’d probably run back to Ballynowhere by themselves, if they’d any sense at all. ‘We should get you looked at. Are you sure you weren’t hurt?’
‘It’s his blood, I told you. That wee lad they just shot, like a dog in the street. He was nice, Bob. He called me madam. It’s not his fault he’s been sent over here.’
Bob had nothing to say. She got up, her hair falling down, her face so lovely and so angry, splashed with the dead soldier’s blood. ‘Where’s it going to end? They killed John, and they kill wee lads in the street, and John’s wee boy, he’ll never be the same, and my Paula’s crying every night about the bad men and afraid her daddy won’t come home one day. Afraid someone’ll bomb his car or the house or shoot him in the head.’
He’d nothing to say to that either. The risks were huge, and for a Catholic officer like PJ, even higher.
‘It has to stop,’ said Margaret, setting her jaw. She moved past him. ‘Can I go, then? I’m going.’
‘Wait!’ She turned in the door. ‘What . . . what will you do?’ He was afraid for her, a terrible pressing fear that was even worse than what he felt every day, got up with in the morning and went to sleep with at night until it was almost comforting, his old companion. He was afraid because he could do nothing to protect her.
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