A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4) (20 page)

Guy was coming towards her, talking rapidly, quietly. As if time was running out. ‘It’s Sean Conlon – he’s been murdered.’

Again, her first thought was odd – some kind of regret. What if he’d known something? They’d never be sure now.

He was still moving, speaking fast and low. The officers were at the door. ‘It’s Aidan. He was the last person to see Conlon. They had a fight. Last night. Everyone in the pub saw. Now Conlon’s dead. I’m sorry to come here but I thought it might be easier if it was me – they wouldn’t wait – I’m sorry.’

Aidan was coming down the aisle. That was the wrong way round. She was meant to go to him. She had a moment to see his face – pale under the dark hair – his grey wedding suit – the single white rose in his buttonhole.

Then, too late, she finally understood.

Alice

When I was little – shortly before they packed me off to boarding school and moved to Africa – Tony and Rebecca took me to a circus. I was almost sick with excitement. I remember the popcorn, the smell of elephant poo, the way the steel poles of the tent dug down into the mud. The red and blue dome overhead, the man in the top hat and whip.

The thing I remember most is the magician. He had a sparkly red cape and a moustache, and a lady in a spangly swimsuit I thought must be his wife. He did tricks, pulled rabbits from his hat – and then he chopped his wife into pieces. It worked like this. She went into the giant box with stars painted on the side. Then the magician began pushing swords through it. When the first one went in, I screamed. Rebecca tutted and told me to be quiet. But Tony smiled at me, and a minute later I felt him take my sticky little hand in his big one, and I knew everything was OK.

Then of course the box fell apart and the lady wasn’t there; she’d vanished and appeared at the top of the tent, on the platform for the trapeze artists, shining like a star. I clapped so hard my hands hurt. It was like a miracle. Later on, when it became clear I’d been taken to the circus to soften the blow of being sent away, I wondered what it would be like to actually be the magician’s wife. Never knowing when he might make you disappear, or when he might cut you to pieces.

Part Three

‘If there’s no meaning in it,’ said the King, ‘that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn’t try to find any.’

Lewis Carroll,
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Ballyterrin, Northern Ireland,
July 1981

There were freedom fighters, in other countries, who strapped their bombs to their own bodies. Pulled a switch, went sky-high along with everyone else, straight to the afterlife in a blaze of glory. Died for the cause, and willingly.

That was not the Republican way. If you got blown up with your own bomb it was because you’d made a hames of it. No, your way was to plant it, walk off, then pull the switch. Ring in a warning, if you were feeling nice about it. Stand back and watch it go up. Today, there had been no bomb. And yet the feeling as you drove away from Ballyterrin was the same. A sort of excitement, that made you tap your fingers on the wheel and fidget your feet on the pedals. Waiting for it to go up. It was lunchtime now. They’d find him soon, and then . . .

He’d known you when you came to the door. Smile on his face.
A chara.
Friend.
Come on in.

Your hands convulsed at the memory. It had to be done, friend or no friend. It was your duty and you weren’t about to shirk it, not when those lads in the jail had given body and blood to the struggle. The least you could give was a bit of your soul.

It was over quickly. The surprised look on his face, the light in the eyes going out, the slump down the hallway, a dark red stain sliding behind him. Nice wallpaper, with bobbly bits. Ruined now. Behind him, under the coatrack, a pair of child’s welly boots. Yellow. Duck’s faces on the front.

But you weren’t going to think about that. You were driving fast, the radio playing. ‘Ghost Town’
.
That was nearly funny. You were passing the old church now, almost away from Ballyterrin. For a moment you imagined pulling up, going in, out of the heat in that cold stone, and gulping in the air, and saying your penance. But no. Better to get away. In the gate of the church a girl was standing, her eyes shaded against the sun. Yellow dress, yellow hair. Something in her hands – white roses? As you passed, the air from the car moulded her dress around the shape of her, and you noticed, and that was good. You’d feel OK again soon. You’d smile at pretty girls on summer days. You’d bring them roses. Everything would be grand. Soon.

The radio. ‘In Belfast, another hunger striker lies on the brink of death . . .’ He would die now. Because of what you’d done. You did what you had to, for the struggle.

But the smile on his face. Welcoming you in.
Sean
, he’d said.
A chara. Come on in.
You weren’t sure if you would ever forget that.

Chapter Thirty-Five

‘But miss, you can’t—’

Shaking, Paula rounded on the desk sergeant. ‘It’s
Doctor
. What’s your name? I’ve been working here nearly three years, for Christ’s sake. I’m entitled to go into the station if I want.’ She’d even brought her work pass to the church, among the cards in her wallet. God knows why.

‘But, you’re . . .’ He waved a hand at her dress with its stiff cream layers, the flowers falling down from her head.

‘That’s because it’s my wedding day, you eejit. Only you lot arrested the bloody groom.’ She’d watched Aidan being loaded into the police car – moving like a sleepwalker, not looking at her – and she’d collared some late-arriving guest, made them drive her up the road. She wasn’t even sure who, one of Aidan’s colleagues at the paper, maybe? A youngish fella. Rude to turn up late, anyway.

The desk sergeant was gesturing helplessly. ‘But you can’t . . .’

‘All right, let her in.’ Helen Corry appeared, clattering through reception in sky-high heels. Paula had a moment to think how well she looked, in an oyster-grey silk suit, a little hat on her fair hair. She must have come straight from the church. ‘You couldn’t have gone home to change?’ she asked Paula, not unkindly.

‘No! Aidan’s been arrested!’

‘I know, I know.’ She had buzzed them in, was directing Paula down a corridor. The station was as full as it always was on a Saturday, and she felt the curious looks from officers she knew and ones she didn’t. Flicking over her skin like little scratches. Corry opened a door and switched on a light. ‘In you go.’

‘An interview room? For God’s sake.’

‘The nice one, at least. Come on, you can’t be running round here like Runaway Bride.’

Paula relented, sinking with shaking hands into the sofa. It was the place they took victims, or families, people in deep shock – that was her now, the family. Of the suspect.

Corry stayed standing. ‘I rang around. I asked why in the name of God would they do this at your wedding – apparently there’s good evidence against him.’

She was running it through in her head – Aidan at the house. The blood. ‘Sean Conlon.’ Her voice was muffled, like it was coming from far away. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Well, yes. He was drinking in Flanagan’s pub last night. The punters said Aidan came in about eleven, saw Conlon, started on him. Conlon went out back, Aidan followed. Neither came back in so the barman just thought they’d gone off home.’

Paula knew the owner of Flanagan’s well. He’d stayed open all through the Troubles by turning so many blind eyes it was a wonder he could see at all. ‘And what then?’

Slight pause. ‘Well, they found Conlon’s body this morning, in the car park. He’d been beaten to death – Paula, someone smashed his head off the tarmac.’

She made a small noise in her throat. The bruises on Aidan’s hands. Paula suddenly thought she might be sick. She closed her eyes. ‘It – it was my wedding day,’ was all she could think to say.

‘I know. It’s a crap thing they did. Willis said they thought he’d be a flight risk – you probably even had a honeymoon booked . . .’

Oh God. Another layer of things to cancel. The flights, the hotel in Granada, the meal for seventy-five guests – all that money . . .

Paula realised her breath was coming thick and raspy. ‘What do I do? I don’t know what to do.’

‘He could get bail maybe – he needs a good lawyer. Do you know anyone?’

Lawyers. She had to think. The only ones she knew had defended some of the worst terrorists in Ireland. But they’d often won, of course. ‘Colin McCready,’ she said. ‘Call him. Tell him it’s Paula. Tell him it’s Margaret’s girl.’

‘Isn’t he—’

‘Yeah. So he’ll do it.’ Her mother’s old boss. Paula was fairly sure he’d been in love with Margaret – even though she’d been suspected of stealing information about the Republican prisoners they defended, giving it to Special Branch. More than enough, in the eyes of the IRA, to execute someone.

She lurched to her feet. ‘Where’s Maggie?’ Dear God, she’d run out of the church without even thinking about her child. She’d be so confused, frightened . . .

‘She’s with your stepmum. I don’t think anyone knows what to do – but I persuaded Pat to go home with the wean. Your dad’s outside.’

‘I need to see her . . . she’ll be upset, she was so excited—’ She reached for the door.

‘You don’t want to see Aidan? I can get you a quick chat, he’s in the cells—’

She shook her head. ‘No. Maggie needs me.’ And all she could think about was Aidan’s hands, his missing T-shirt, the way he’d kissed her so gently on the cheek. Judas kiss. She turned to Corry. ‘Will you call the lawyer? I don’t think I can . . . I couldn’t talk to him today. I need to go. I need Maggie.’

‘Of course I will.’ Paula could hardly stand the look of sympathy on Corry’s face, normally so stern and professional.

Her voice wobbled. ‘Thanks.’

Outside, the office was a blur. Ringing phones, sympathetic faces. She had to get away from it.

‘Paula—’ He was in the doorway. His face so kind she could hardly bear it. Before she even knew it she was walking away from him. No. She wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t go to Aidan, to where he was locked in one of the cells – in this very building! – but she wouldn’t go to Guy either, not after he’d come to the church on her wedding day, bringing with him nothing but doom. She shook her head and walked past him, out of the police station that held both men, her wedding dress hanging around her, useless. In the car park, her dad was leaning against his Volvo. In his new grey wedding suit, his face grim, his bad leg held out stiff. She went to him, rustling silk with every step. ‘Oh Dad,’ she said, the tears finally coming as she sobbed into his shoulder.

‘Just visiting today, Dr Maguire?’

She forced a smile. ‘Yes. A personal visit this time.’

The prison officer, what Paula’s father would call a ‘wee hard man’, who had a white moustache and shoulder epaulettes, signed her into the visitors’ room without further comment. Paula had been in prisons many times. She was an old hand at the clang of metal doors, the bleach and cabbage smell of the places, the suffocating heat. The blank file of women heading to the visitors’ room, occasionally casting glances at each other’s shoes or hair. But she’d never been here before as one of them.

Aidan looked different behind the table. Smaller somehow – he’d been in here two nights already, while Paula tried to sort out the mess he’d left. He was fidgeting about in a way that meant he wanted to smoke. Paula thought of the cigarettes she’d found in his pocket, and for a moment loss got her by the throat – he’d lied to her about that. Maybe he’d lied to her about everything. She started to walk towards him, willing her feet to move.

He was the first to speak. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Me? I’m fine.’

‘But the wedding – Jesus, what a mess.’

‘Dad handled it. People got fed, I think, and then they went home.’

‘Your big day.’

‘For God’s sake. I never wanted all that, and you know it.’

‘But you were there, in your dress – I hardly saw you, Maguire, they were hauling me off. But you looked—’

‘
Stop
it. I never wanted a big white wedding. I wanted you. And now you’re . . . Christ, look at you.’

He looked down at his knuckles – one hand was shining raw. ‘Yeah. He’s got some buddies in here.’

‘But you didn’t do it. Just tell them you didn’t do it.’ Aidan said nothing, and she watched the moment sail away. ‘Will you at least tell me what happened, for God’s sake?’ She lowered her voice. ‘You had blood on you. That night you came in.’

She waited for him to explain it all away. He didn’t. ‘Aye. If they ask you, tell them whatever you know. Don’t lie for me. I won’t have you losing your job, it’s too important.’

‘Don’t be stupid. I can’t—’

‘Listen to me, Maguire. You’ve work to do, finding that missing girl and all the other ones too. You have to be above suspicion. Tell them it all and I’ll sink or swim on my own.’ His face tightened for a minute. ‘Is Mags . . . did she see them take me?’

‘No, she was – she was up front with Saoirse. She wants to know where you are, of course.’ Paula didn’t say that Maggie had cried herself to sleep the last two nights, inconsolable, wanting Daddy to put her to bed. There’d even been a search of the house. Quick, and discreet as possible, thanks to Corry, but all the same hands running over her things, opening up all the secret places of the life she and Aidan had been building. Until two days ago. ‘But, Aidan, listen—’

‘She likes the
Hungry Caterpillar
story at bedtime. And
Goodnight Moon
. And I make up a story and do the voices – and she likes the jammies with the ducks, but not the ones with teddies. She thinks they have a funny look in their eyes.’

‘OK.’ She knew all this, but it seemed to soothe him. ‘But you’ll be back soon. You’ll get bail, surely, and then a trial—’ Bail wasn’t guaranteed in murder cases, but surely they’d see he hadn’t done it. See he wasn’t capable of such a thing.

‘I’m not sure I’ll get bail.’

‘What?’ Paula felt a lurch in her stomach. ‘Aidan. You need to tell me what’s going on! Did you see him? Conlon?’ She was remembering the man, his soft voice, his watchful eyes. Imagined Aidan lunging at him, Aidan who was all bluster and fire. Getting Conlon by the throat and pushing him down, and banging his head again and again on the rain-slick surface of Flanagan’s car park. Beside the bins with their stink of stale booze. Smashing the man’s head until he stopped moving.

No. She couldn’t imagine it. But Aidan was nodding.

‘You went to Flanagan’s?’

‘Aye. I just wanted . . . well, I thought I could have one for the road. One last time.’

‘And he was there.’

‘Aye. He said—’ Aidan swallowed. ‘He knew who I was. The paperman’s boy. I said he’d a lot of nerve coming to the pub, after all the people he’d killed. He said he’d served his time and if I’d a problem drinking with murderers he suggested I found myself another establishment. I said he never served his time for everyone he killed. He tried to push past me, go outside for a fag. I smelled it on him. You know my da, he used to smoke in the office. You were allowed to, back then. It’s why I always – well, I should quit, I know, but the smell always reminds – I just like it.’

Paula found she was conjuring John O’Hara, his spicy tobacco smell, the mints he always had in his pocket. She’d only been six when he was killed, but she knew exactly what had happened. Like all children in Northern Ireland, she was very well aware she was living somewhere that was not safe, where bad men could walk in and shoot your uncle John, who was so kind and always said
there’s wee Paula
when he saw you and gave you a Polo to suck down to a sliver.

‘When Da died, he’d been smoking. I watched it burning away in the ashtray when they left, and he was—’

Paula knew the rest of this story. John, dying, not knowing if the gunmen who’d shot him had seen Aidan, had motioned to the child not to move from where he was playing under a desk. So he hadn’t, even after the men did their work and left his daddy to bleed to death on the floor. She bit the side of her mouth in frustration. This was old sorrow. This should have been gone and buried, not still giving more. ‘I asked you to tell me what happened.’

‘Aye, I – well. I followed him out. I said, Conlon, you lying prick, tell me what you know about my da. And he just says, he’s dead. I know he’s fucking dead, I say. What I don’t know is who killed him, but I’m thinking you do. You said you served your time – well me and my ma are still doing ours.’ Aidan swallowed again. ‘So he stubbed out his fag on the wall. Says, son, you want to be careful who you ask those questions. Or you’ll get in the same kind of trouble as your da. My da was a great man, I say – I’d had a few, Maguire, I admit – and he says – your da was a Brit-licking traitor, son. This war is over now, and your da was a casualty. He knew what he was doing. I suggest you let it go. So I pull him back – he’s . . . he was a big lad, you know, must have kept in shape inside – and I shut the door in his face. And he goes . . . he goes . . . 
you’re the same weak wee shite as you were back then
.’

Paula let out all her breath. No one knew Aidan had seen his father die – the police were afraid the men who’d shot his father might not baulk at killing a child witness. ‘So you mean . . . he admitted it? He said he was there that night?’

Aidan put his face in his hands. ‘Aye. Maybe. What does it matter? Even if he didn’t pull the trigger he knew. They all knew. They assassinated my da in cold blood and nobody gave a damn.’

‘So what did you do?’ Her voice sounded dull, like a clanging bell.

‘I saw red – I hit . . . I hit, God. I hit him. He went down . . . I kicked him. Then I ran. I ran off, came home. I washed off the blood – you saw. It was all over my T-shirt.’

‘Did you put it in the bin?’ It was surreal. A chat about laundry.

‘Aye, it’s in the big bin outside. They’ll have found it by now.’

‘Aidan—’ She prepared to ask the question that could change everything. Because despite what he’d said, she couldn’t see him beating a man until he was dead. ‘When you stopped – was Conlon still alive? Was he breathing?’

Aidan looked at his raw hands. ‘I – I thought so. I thought he was making a noise. And I sort of – time went funny. I was on the whiskey, and it’s been a while – and I just can’t be sure, you know. God help me, Maguire, I just don’t know.’

Paula sat staring at the table. Coffee rings marked its plastic surface. Dirty, and ruined, just like everything else. ‘How could you do this?’ she said quietly.

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I asked you. I asked would you be OK. And you told me we’d be fine. You promised me. And I put on a fucking white dress for you and I went to the church and . . . all for you!’

Aidan looked stung. ‘Maguire, come on. I wanted to marry you. I wanted us to be a family. Is that so wrong? I know you never wanted the wedding, you’ve been dragging your heels since day one, but—’