Who Took Eden Mulligan?
Page 27
‘Do you really think there’ll be a next time?’ Rose asked, glad the stand-off was over, that they had Paddy and that the case was almost solved.
‘I would bet on it,’ he said, smiling.
CHAPTER 64
The next morning Rose was in the basement office when Danny arrived at the door carrying two coffees.
‘Thought you could do with this,’ he said, handing her one of the mugs. ‘You did well, Rosie. You kept him talking and got the confession.’
‘Well nothing’s on tape but we’ll have enough to move forward.’
It seemed obvious now that the repressed anger, the heightened anxiety, and the shame of the Mulligan children’s abandonment, would eventually spill out into something ugly and evil.
‘We’ve cleared the Moss Street house. Paddy had been sleeping there on and off. He’d set it up like his lair, with a sleeping bag, a small gas stove, some canned food and his carpentry tools. He’d made that dolls’ house there too and created the creepy dolls from ones belonging to Eileen and Lizzie. Each one made for him and his siblings. Five children. Five dolls.’
‘There’s still one more part of the puzzle missing though,’ Rose said.
‘Yeah’ Danny said. ‘Lizzie.’
The rain had eased and the heat from the previous weeks had dissipated, leaving the air fresh and clean. Danny and Rose were sat in the pool car, waiting for Lizzie Mulligan to arrive at her home; a semi-detached house off the Antrim Road.
‘There she is,’ said Rose.
To look at Lizzie Mulligan, you’d think she was a well pulled together middle-aged woman, looking after her family, going to work, counting down the days to the next bottle of prosecco to be shared with friends. Nothing about Lizzie suggested anything sinister. She was too smart for that.
It wasn’t just how she looked – the high cheekbones, the haughtiness in her demeanour, the set of her full mouth pulled tight over her sharp white teeth – but also in the way she carried herself, like she was worth something. Rose knew a woman like that in the right environment would succeed in anything she’d put her mind to. People respond to beauty.
Eden had been tarnished because of her beauty. If she’d been born in Edinburgh, Manchester or London, she could have had a different life. One of privilege bestowed on her simply because she looked a certain way. As it was, she’d found herself in Belfast amidst the Troubles, a ridiculous name for a bloody war of intimidation and brutality.
Lizzie Mulligan’s outlook and potential had been limited by poverty and a broken, motherless family. Rose had seen it before. Families can get by without a father, but an absent mother leaves a void that can’t be filled. Lizzie, like the rest of her siblings, had been emotionally wounded. She hid it well beneath the good haircut and the stylish Karen Millen jacket, but take away the trappings and Lizzie was as broken and sad as Paddy, Cormac, Eileen or Eamonn. Maybe more so.
Overnight, Rose had tried to fathom the workings of Lizzie’s mind. In some ways, Lizzie had distanced herself so completely that she didn’t hold herself to account. Absolved herself from all guilt simply by trading one harm off against another. Her brother was expendable, beyond salvage, his life deemed worthless. The secret bond of twins, forged in the shared space of the womb, had been broken, savagely so.
Danny got out of the car as Lizzie approached. ‘Lizzie Mulligan, we need to have a word. We’d like you to accompany us to the station.’
‘I want my solicitor,’ she said. Her hand, glinting with a diamond ring, flew to her hair in a nervous gesture.
CHAPTER 65
The interview started out with Lizzie refusing to answer their questions and her solicitor sitting stony faced and impassive. Rose explained her analysis: Lizzie had decided way back, as far as that first adoption placement, that her brother was of no use to her. So she spun lies about the adoptive father, made Paddy feel that he had to defend her. Damaged any chance he had of a normal life. Why had she done it? Probably because she’d decided that her life could be better without him. Placed in a new family, she could reinvent herself and take the chance to have a normal life, one maybe even better than the one she’d left behind in Moss Street.
‘Lizzie, we know what happened. I understand your process. How you worked your brother Paddy, manipulated him and made him do your dirty work.’
She smirked. ‘I can’t be held to account for what he did.’
The solicitor put a hand up, indicating to Lizzie to stop responding.
‘What changed, Lizzie?’ Rose could see a shift in her features, a softening. Something breaking.
‘Starting my own family, it caught up with me, made me start thinking about our Ma and what we’d missed. Over the years I’d no interest in the crusade Paddy and Eamonn were on. I’d no trust in the authorities to do what was right, and to be honest, I knew that they couldn’t bring her back.’
Somehow the idea of finding out what had happened to Eden had ossified into something dark and putrid, Rose thought.
‘My client does not have to answer any questions.’
Lizzie turned to her solicitor. ‘Forget it, Marcus, I need to talk. It’s over.’
She turned back to Rose. ‘I couldn’t bring her back but thought maybe we could avenge her death. Not like track down those who’d done it and bring them to justice – more a sense of restoring the balance. It was clear in my head that someone had to pay, and it wasn’t for our Ma’s life as much as for ours – the kids that were left behind, left to rot.’
‘How did you get your brother on board?’ Rose asked.
‘He was easy to work. That’s the thing about damaged people, they are always looking for someone or something to save them, make it all better. He thought I could do that. He only had to do as I said and all would be okay. He’d take his last dying breath knowing he’d made the ultimate sacrifice to make right what had happened to our mother. Twisted, fucked-up logic. God, men are so easy to play.’
‘How did you do it, Lizzie? How did you make Paddy believe in you? To commit the murders?’
‘The oldest trick in the book: guilt. My own brother, entranced by the thought of the bond between us. The years apart had allowed for the intensity of brother and sister to fade but when we met up there was a pull, strong and indisputable.
‘All it took was a faraway look, my hand resting on his a second too long. We all have that strong desire to belong, to have a bond. His weak mind couldn’t compute that he was being played. Deep down, he felt connected to me and I played on that until it felt like he’d do anything for me and our family. It was always there, that echo of us as kids, me and him. Two peas in a pod, our Ma would say. In the days after she vanished, we would lie in my bedroom in Moss Street, telling each other stories about our Ma and hoping that one day she would show up,’ Lizzie said.
‘He leaned on me to protect him. I was the closest thing he had to our mother. That meant something to him. And even though there were times when I thought he didn’t have it in him, he was brilliant. He did get the job done. What I hadn’t counted on was him bringing Eamonn into it. At some point, he’d left Eamonn a long, rambling voicemail telling him that he’d be going away for a long time, but that he was okay with that because he was not right in the head and that he had only done what he had, to help clear our mother’s name. As if the reason overrode the action. The rumours of our mother abandoning us or being a tout had eaten him up. He wanted it known that our Mum would not have left us.
‘Then he asked Eamonn to look after me. Eamonn rang me in a mad panic. “What’s he on about, Lizzie? What’s he planning to do?” I knew then that he had fucked it up. He wasn’t meant to bring anyone else in on it.’
Danny stood up. ‘Lizzie Mulligan, I am charging you with conspiring to murder. You do not have to say anything …’
CHAPTER 66
Later, Rose and Danny updated ACC McCausland and accepted his congratulations on solving not one, but two cases. Eamonn Mulligan had been arrested along with his
brother, Paddy, and sister, Lizzie, leaving Cormac and Eileen bewildered and sad. It would take some time for them to accept the turn of events.
‘I’ve got to hand it you, Stowe, I didn’t think the Eden Mulligan case merited our time and energy. I thought it was going to be one of those cold cases that never gets solved. Well done,’ McCausland said, looking pleased. For once he was giving them his full attention.
‘Thanks, Sir. I’ve been lucky to have Dr Lainey’s insights. I don’t think I would have cracked this without her.’
Rose appreciated Danny’s recognition, but it was the combination of psychological input, diligence and investigation that had got the job done.
‘Of course, Lainey, you’ve to be congratulated too.’
‘Thank you. We’re heading out to see Iona Gardener now to fill her in on what has happened. Her doctor thinks she needs to hear it from us,’ Rose said.
‘Well, get it wrapped up and enjoy your weekend. You both deserve a few days break.’
Iona was with her parents in their Shandon Road home, having been discharged from the hospital. Her memory was still sketchy, but she had a better understanding of the events and was recovering from the trauma. There was still a look of anxiety about Iona, as if panic was just beneath the surface ready to bubble up at any given provocation. The superficial injuries had healed, though one had left a faint scar on her left cheekbone.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see us, Iona,’ Rose said, as she sat on a dark green velvet sofa in the Gardeners’ living room. ‘How are you?’
‘The doctor says I’m doing better. Some days I agree. Others … well, I’m not so sure.’
‘You’ve been through a lot. It’s not going to be easy, but with the right help you’ll get there,’ Danny said.
‘It’s just not fair. My friends didn’t deserve this. I feel so guilty for bringing it to our door. If I hadn’t become involved with Paddy Mulligan, this would never have happened to us. My stupid dissertation seemed so important at the time. That’s laughable now. My friends are all gone. I keep thinking of everything they will miss out on – marriage, kids – all the big milestones of life.’
‘You couldn’t possibly have known how dangerous Paddy Mulligan was,’ Rose said gently.
‘We moved into the Dunlore cottage thinking our lives were just beginning.’ She breathed out in a sigh. ‘Now life looks totally different. I can’t imagine ever enjoying a good conversation or laughing. Can’t see how I’ll ever feel happy again.’
‘I’m sure it all seems insurmountable now,’ Danny said, ‘but give it time.’
‘The guilt eats me up. I feel responsible. If I had never met Paddy Mulligan …’
Rose reached over and took Iona’s hand. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself. The Mulligans, Lizzie and Paddy especially, were damaged people and they used you.’
Iona looked exhausted.
‘We’ll go now and leave you in peace. Take care and if you need us, to talk about the case or anything, well, just call me,’ Rose said, standing up.
It was all she could offer Iona.
EPILOGUE
It was as if after everything that had happened – her mother’s death and returning to Belfast – Rose had been forced to a place she couldn’t come back from. Not without changing everything about herself first. Standing in her rented apartment, she looked out the window, across the expanse of dark water, and felt a contentment that she thought had been lost to her. Her life had taken an unexpected turn, delivering her back to Belfast, and here among the embers she had felt some sort of renewal.
There was a contentment in reconnecting with her family. And, of course, having Danny in her life again was worth returning for. Tomorrow she would see if she could extend her contract with the PSNI. It was time to stop running, to unearth the shards of the splintered bones of her childhood and to heal the hurts.
Danny had kept his promise to look into Evelyn’s past and what he turned up was shocking to both of them. Evelyn Lavery had been an informer. She had worked for the state passing on covert information that had helped to secure the arrest of three members of her own community. Rose had shaken her head, not sure how to take it in.
‘She wasn’t in the IRA?’
‘Technically, she worked for them as part of a clean-up squad who would be called upon to clear evidence. She also occasionally moved weapons and transported people.’
‘But all that time she was working undercover?’
‘Yeah, Rosie.’
It would take a while for Rose to process this new image of Evelyn. She had questions still unanswered, but at least she felt she was closer to knowing the truth. It was time to make amends, to get to know her brothers and sister all over again as adults.
She slid back the glass door and stepped out onto the narrow balcony, breathing in the muggy air and letting it rest deep in her lungs before exhaling. There was no sense of danger in the atmosphere. Belfast was different, but so was Rose.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the following people who make my life immeasurably richer:
Liam, Kate, Owen, and Sarah, my loves. Special mention to Daisy, our cat, for putting up with me taking photographs for Twitter and Instagram.
My Mum, Jeannie for being amazing, especially during the difficult years of which we’ve had more than a few.
To Katie Loughnane, Sabah Khan and the entire Avon and HarperCollins team, thank you for welcoming me into the fold and for transforming my story into a real-life book! I have enjoyed every minute of the process.
Lina Langlee, agent extraordinaire. Thank you for your support, your calm, measured approach and for taking a chance with me.
Neil Ranasinghe for answering my annoying questions and reading an early draft.
Amy H. Deeken, M.D. for answering my pathology questions.
Damian Smyth, Head of Literature, Arts Council NI for the ongoing support.
The Northern Irish crime fiction community – too many to name individually.
Thanks to Joan, Katie, Tracey, Andrea, Roma, Deborah, Zoe and Donna for the friendship and laughs.
And to you my reader, thank you for buying my book.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Who Took Eden Mulligan? is based in fictional and real places in and around Belfast.
About the Author
Sharon Dempsey is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University, exploring class and gender in crime fiction. She was a journalist and health writer before turning to writing crime fiction and has written for a variety of publications and newspapers, including the Irish Times. Sharon also facilitates creative writing classes for people affected by cancer and other health challenges.
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