The Broken Shore (17 page)

As she asked herself the questions she lifted the fireside rug and slid back the section of floor beneath it, exposing a small safe. She turned the tumblers quickly to reveal what was inside. Her first answer came as she lifted out a small book. The pleasure hadn’t been in hurting Lissy but in hurting her. Leaving her to live with the knowledge that her child had been killed because of something she’d done. Right or wrong, it didn’t matter. Something she’d done in the past had taken her beautiful daughter’s life.

Guilt overwhelmed her and the tears flowed again as she stared through their fog at the book in her hand. She turned it over, half-smiling at the lurid purple fabric that bound its back. Had people ever really liked that shade? She ran her fingers slowly down the lettering on the front, thinking back to the day she’d bought it in the stationery shop. She smiled as she remembered the twenty-five-year-old she’d been. Already an Inspector and aiming for the top, determined that nothing would get in her way.

But she’d been something else as well then. She’d been in love. Day-dreaming, butterfly-generating love, for the only time in her life. And he’d loved her back. But it had to be their secret, there were too many obstacles to overcome. Romeo and Juliet, but their obstacles were bigger than family on either side.

She turned the small book over and traced the numbers 1983. Her diary. What was written inside was so dangerous that it could have destroyed her life. It had destroyed her lover’s. So why hadn’t she just thrown it on the fire? Why keep it to be found by accident someday? As she turned the first page a photograph fell out and she had her answer. The lovers, smiling and kissing in front of her eyes. Her heart soared and she knew why she hadn’t disposed of it. She was still in love.

***

Craig smiled at the speakerphone as the words came thick and fast from the other end of the line. After a moment of listening he spoke.

“Slow down, Davy. I’m older than you. It takes me a while to process things.”

Davy smiled, knowing that Craig was probably already ten paces ahead, but he took a deep breath and started again.

“Lissy Trainor’s e-mails.”

“OK, what about them?”

“They w…were written in code.”

Craig frowned to himself. What had he uncovered? Had the girl been some sort of spy?

“What do you mean code, Davy? Do you mean a kid’s code or a real encryption?”

“Half-way between the two. She was s…smart. Beyond smart, she was a genius. Most of her e-mails are normal, just the usual ‘what are you doing at the weekend, who’s dating who?’ stuff that you’d expect from a girl her age.”

Craig laughed. Davy sounded like Old Father Time when he was only a few years older than Lissy had been.

“But?”

“Exactly! But her e-mails to one contact were always written in a complex s…substitution code.”

“Can you work it out?”

“Yes. She was good but not as good as me. I’ll have it cracked by the end of the day.”

Craig smiled at his confidence. In anyone else it would have been an arrogant boast but with Davy he knew that it was true. If he said end-of-the-day that meant he’d have cracked it by afternoon tea.

“Who was she writing to?”

“Ah, that’s the other thing. It was someone called Commodus_1, but when I contacted the internet provider, they said the address was a front.”

“Can they get behind it?”

“They’re trying. But they said it was routed through about five servers, across different continents. W…whoever did this knows their stuff.”

Craig paused, thinking. If they found out what the messages said then the I.D. of the sender might give itself away. A thought occurred to him.

“Commodus? Wasn’t he a Roman Emperor? Is there some clue there?”

“What, apart from the fact he w…was a psychopath?”

Davy paused then restarted as realisation dawned. “You mean, does the choice of the name say something about the person who chose it? Probably not, except that he thinks he’s important. Leave it w…with me. I’ll call you back if I find something.” He paused then remembered he had a message for Craig. “Sorry, boss. Before you go, Nicky says Dr Winter’s looking for you.”

The phone clicked off and Craig smiled to himself at Davy’s confidence. Gone was the shy young graduate who’d first joined them. He was a core member of the team now, although if he was right about his urge to be a detective they might lose him soon. He shuddered at the thought and turned back to the pile of paper spread across the interview room desk. He was just re-reading Lissy’s P.M report when the door opened with a bang. Liam strode in and grabbed a seat, sitting down with a smile on his face.

“Well now, guess what I’ve just heard?”

Craig took the bait. “What?”

“Three little words that made me as happy as hell.”

“Don’t tell me, Danni called to say she loves you.”

Liam spluttered and waved the suggestion away but Craig could see him counting the words in his head.

“No. Try again.”

Craig racked his brains for a moment then gave up and nodded him on.

“That’s the man.”

“What?”

“They’re the three words. That’s the man. My witness has only gone and I.D.ed the guy seen talking to Lissy Trainor on the Sunday evening!”

Craig leaned forward so quickly that Liam jerked backwards in shock.

“Who was it?”

His money was on someone other than James O’Carolan, but he was prepared to be proved wrong. The grin on Liam’s face said he was preparing to string out the reveal, but the look on Craig’s said that he’d better not.

“Jonno Mulvenna. I showed her his photo as part of an array and she picked him out. So much for his alibi. Ballymena painting course, my ass.”

Craig shook his head and Liam’s face fell. He would have loved it to be that easy but it was impossible. The witness had said the man was mid-thirties at most, Mulvenna was fifty-eight. He looked good but there was no way he could past for thirty, not even in a very dim light. The penny dropped on Craig quickly.

“You showed her the photo from Mulvenna’s file, didn’t you?”

Liam hesitated for a moment then looked at him like it was a trick question. “Aye… so what?”

“Your witness said the man was no older than thirty. Mulvenna was twenty-eight in that photo but he’s fifty-eight now. And his alibi’s solid as far as we know. You phoned Ballymena yourself. He was never away from the other painters for long enough to get to Portstewart and back. She I.D.ed Mulvenna because you showed her an old photograph.”

Liam shook his head hard then, after a pause, he banged his fist on the desk. “Aw, shit. I knew it was too good to be true.”

But the way Craig was nodding to himself said perhaps not. Craig stood up quickly and headed for the corridor, talking as he walked. Liam loped after him.

“Where are you going?”

“Is your witness still here?”

“Aye. She’s having a cuppa in the canteen until a car comes to take her home.”

Craig stopped and Liam could see his brain racing. “Cancel the car and ask her to come back into the interview room, but don’t say why. I’ll join you there in a minute.”

Craig walked swiftly down the corridor and pushed at the fire-exit door. A minute later he was breathing in sea air. He gazed out at the Atlantic Ocean inhaling deeply. Docklands C.C.U. sat beside the river Lagan and he could see all the way to the Irish Sea when he stood outside, but the air here felt different. Cleaner somehow.

The Atlantic’s waves were high and grey, crashing loudly against the sand as if they were angry with it. The sea wind blew hard against Craig’s face, prickling it with rain and wafting the scent of seaweed and ozone up from the beach. The last of Lissy’s crime-scene tape fluttered in the distance and a solitary police car sat alongside it keeping watch. There was nothing else but the sand and the waves to distract his thoughts. Craig stood there for a moment letting the view clear his head and tried to make sense of what he’d just heard.

It couldn’t have been Mulvenna that Jenna Farrelly had seen but how many men looked
exactly
the same? So much so that she’d convinced Liam with her I.D.? There were a lot of tall, dark men in Northern Ireland but similarity wouldn’t have made her quite that sure. That left them with one possibility. If it wasn’t Jonno Mulvenna that she’d seen, it had to have been someone related to him.

He pulled out his phone and gave Davy the task of finding out, then stared at the sea for five more minutes until Davy called back. Craig nodded as he listened, then cut the call and re-entered the red-brick building. Jenna Farrelly was seated in the interview room with a bemused expression on her face. Craig extended his hand to shake and nodded Liam to sit at the table’s end while he took up position opposite their guest. He knew that how he asked the next questions was important. He didn’t want to sway her but he needed to raise the possibility that she was only half-correct.

“Mrs Farrelly, my name is Superintendent Marc Craig. I’m heading up the investigation into Elizabeth Trainor’s death.”

She shook her head sadly. “Terrible thing. She looked like a nice wee girl. I used to see her on the beach all the time.”

“Yes, it was terrible. “ He paused and lightened his tone. “Chief Inspector Cullen tells me that you often shop on the parade.”

“Yes. The butcher’s. Our Damon loves the sausages they make.” She shot him a wry look. “But before you ask, I’m sure I saw the girl that Sunday. I know because it was my daughter’s birthday and I was admiring the leggings she wore. Elsa wanted a pair so I asked her where she bought them.”

Craig nodded. Good, she was a clear witness and hard to shift. That would help if it ever got to court. He framed his next question carefully, ignoring Liam’s puzzled look.

“You said that Lissy was talking to a man that day?”

She folded her arms defiantly, as if daring him to challenge her. “Yes, she was.”

“Would you mind describing him again for me?”

She sniffed and glanced at Liam, waiting for his nod. Then she started talking in a bored tone.

“As I told Mr Cullen, he was about six-feet-one tall, around thirty with very dark hair and brown eyes. He was good looking. Like that film star out of Pretty Woman. Whatever you call him.”

“Richard Gere?”

She lifted her finger and pointed at Craig triumphantly. “The very one. Mr Cullen showed me a lot of photos and I picked him out.”

“You’re sure he wasn’t going grey?”

She nodded emphatically. “He was dark. He wasn’t old enough to be grey.”

Craig nodded. Her description fitted Jonno Mulvenna except for three things. Jonno Mulvenna had blue eyes, very blue; he’d noticed them both times they’d met. But the man Jenna Farrelly had seen had brown. Mulvenna also had greying hair and although he was well-preserved he would never pass for thirty. She was describing someone who looked like Mulvenna had when he was young. Davy had checked and viewed every available photograph; there were no younger brothers, cousins, sons or nephews anywhere in the Mulvenna family that fitted the bill. That only left one explanation.

Craig stood and extended his hand again. “Thank you for that, Mrs Farrelly, and I believe you’ve given us an excellent sketch as well. If you wouldn’t mind waiting here, Chief Inspector Cullen has a car arranged to take you home. Liam?”

He nodded Liam to follow and they walked to the end of the corridor in silence, then Liam turned to Craig with a questioning look on his face.

“You’re sure it’s not Mulvenna, boss?”

“Sorry to rain on your parade, Liam, but not unless he was wearing contact lenses and miraculously became thirty years younger. Mulvenna has blue eyes and greying hair and there’s no way he’d pass for that age.”

“If it’s not Mulvenna then maybe he has a brother or a son?”

Craig shook his head. “I got Davy to check with the DVLA and passports. There are no males in Mulvenna’s extended family that fit the bill.”

Liam went to moan then he saw a smile in Craig’s eyes that said they weren’t dead yet. “What? You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”

Craig nodded but said nothing.

“You have to tell me, boss. Otherwise it’s like...” He searched around for an abuse that compared. “Cruelty to animals.”

Liam realised what he’d said at the same time Craig did and they laughed simultaneously.

“That ranks up there with your best. Nicky will love it.”

Liam shrugged, knowing it would be back at the office before he was, but he wasn’t letting go of his theme. “Come on, boss. Tell me what makes sense of Mrs Farrelly’s sighting.”

“I will, I promise you, but first I need to call John.”

He turned on his heel and pushed through the fire-exit again for another phone call and more air, leaving Liam running through the last ten minutes in his head and coming up blank.

Chapter Nineteen

“You’re sure, John?”

Craig gripped the phone excitedly and willed his friend to repeat his words.

“Positive. We found a hair under Lissy’s nail and it didn’t belong to her. I’ll start the search once we’ve got the D.N.A..”

“Do me a favour, add Jonno Mulvenna to your check-list. I’ll give him a call and clear it but I don’t think he’ll object to giving you a sample of D.N.A..”

John voice was shocked. “You really think he did it? But I thought his alibi held up.”

“Yes, it did, and no, I don’t think he did it, but I need you to compare his D.N.A. to the hair and tell me what you find.”

John frowned in concentration. There was only one reason for doing that if he didn’t think Mulvenna was their killer. He thought he was related to whoever was.

“Does Mulvenna have a son?”

Craig smiled to himself. He’d known it wouldn’t take John long to work it out.

“Not as far as we know, but…”

“But how many men have sons they know nothing about.”

“Exactly.”

They fell silent for a moment, imagining how many unknown off-spring they both might have. John gulped, thinking of his misspent youth and the endless sperm donation sessions that had paid for his student beer. He continued briskly.

“Right. I’ll do that. But what prompted this sudden change of tack?”

“Liam’s witness I.D.ed Mulvenna as the man she saw Lissy with on the Sunday night, only nearly thirty years younger and with brown eyes.”

“So you thought, brown-eyed mother and Mulvenna’s sperm. Good call. Have you told Liam yet?”

“In outline but I’ll give him the detail once you tell me for sure. We’ll keep on pursuing other leads in between.”

“Leave it with me.”

The phone clicked off then Craig thought of something else. He pushed open the fire-door and prepared to give uniform some more work.

*
**

It had been five days since Lucia had received the last creepy text message and four nights of folding herself into her teenage single bed, instead of stretching out on the king-sized divan that she shared with Richard when he was home. She glanced at the pink floral duvet cover that she’d once loved so much, then up at the ‘Take That’ poster emblazoned on the ceiling above and made up her mind. She was going home. Not here, the teenager from hell home, but her own grown-up retreat.

Lovely and all as her parents were, there was only so much opera a girl could stand first thing in the morning, especially when accompanied by her mother yelling up the stairs at her to ‘come have the breakfast’. She felt as if she was in Groundhog Day with the date somewhere in the ‘90s, and she missed her quiet time, thinking and reading the papers over an espresso before she went to work.

She cast a last look around the bedroom and then prepared to go downstairs and give her folks the news, bracing herself for their sad looks. Their looks wouldn’t be the main obstacle. After that she had to persuade Annette that it was a good idea. If she didn’t do it properly then her big brother would get involved, and that, everyone could do without.

*
**

Craig smiled at the composite photo, pleased with the changes they’d made. Jonno Mulvenna’s 1983 mug-shot stared up at him, minus the number beneath his chin and the height markings on the wall behind, but plus a pair of dark brown eyes instead of his own blue. The grey in his hair had been erased and its style had been modified to give it a more noughties cut. Craig remembered some of the seniors at school sporting the shoulder length mullet in Mulvenna’s mug-shot and it hadn’t been a good look even back then.

He placed the photo beside the sketch Jenna Farrelly had helped work up and gasped. They were identical. This was the man she’d seen. He nodded Ian Flood to run off one hundred copies and picked up the phone to give Liam a call. He was saved the bother by the sound of his booming voice outside in the corridor, telling some unfortunate newbie to ‘let the tea stand next time’.

Craig yanked open the door and stuck his head out. “Liam, leave the lad alone and come in here and take a look.”

Liam lumbered in, carrying a cup of tea so pale that at first Craig thought it was milk. He could see his point. He lifted a copy of the photo and waved it in front of Liam’s face.

“What do you think?”

Liam sniffed and stared at it as if it was some sort of trick. “What do you mean, what do I think? It’s Jonno Mulvenna when he was young. You showed me it before.”

Craig laughed and shook his head. “No, it’s not. Well, not the one I showed you anyway.” He tapped the paper. “Look. His eyes and hair have been changed, to bring it up to date and we’ve given him brown eyes.”

Liam stared again and then nodded, humouring Craig. “Aye, aye. Very good boss. Blue Peter would be proud of you.” He paused for a moment and then stuck his neck out even further. “What’s the point?”

Craig raised his eyes to heaven. Liam was probably right. The changes were subtle, maybe too much so. Or just maybe it might jog the memory of some passer-by who’d seen Lissy Trainor’s conversation on the promenade.

“We’re going to circulate it to the troops and get a few put up around town and along the sea front. Someone might recognise him, whoever he is. I’m going to run it past her friends and family and see if it rings any bells.”

Liam nodded then looked at his tea and abandoned it as a lost cause. Craig wondered if he’d listened to anything he’d just said, then he smiled. He’d heard all right, and if he asked him to repeat it, it would come back rote. Liam lifted a pile of photocopies and went off to distribute them, while Craig braced himself for the call he had to make and the interview that couldn’t be delayed any more.

*
**

The man watched as they stapled a picture of his face to the lamppost across the street, and handed them out randomly to passers-by. Even from where he stood he could see that it was a match, they’d even got his hair almost right. How the hell had they done that without knowing who he was? But they didn’t know or they’d have been knocking on his door right now, instead of wasting paper littering the sea front.

He searched around urgently for the things he needed to take, his eyes lighting on the knife and rope that formed the next part of his plan. The Morphine he’d used for Lissy had been kind and eased her way; he wouldn’t use it kindly this time. He shook the image of Lissy’s clawing hands quickly from his mind. He’d got the dose slightly too low, but she hadn’t clawed for long before she’d finally closed her eyes, to open them again in the next world.

He snorted to himself. The next world. It was funny how the concept stuck even though he’d abandoned religion long before. A lost cause, that was what his parents had said, as if Christian Charity could suddenly run out. Only so much Christianity to go around and he’d used up his lot. Finally his father had got tired of trying to show him the light with the back of his hand and thrown him onto the streets at fourteen. Fifty pounds, the address of a hostel and the last set of clothes he’d been bought; so much for God’s abundant love. He hadn’t stayed away for long. How could he? After all, his parents had made him what he was.

He stared into the mirror at one side of the shop. It curved and distorted everything it saw, its only purpose to observe the aisles for thieves. His face stared back, pulled out of shape by the refracting glass. It made him look odd and plain, except that he wasn’t plain, he was handsome. Handsome enough to catch the young church curate’s eye and make him come calling at night on school trips. He’d whispered God’s will in the darkness as he slid his hands under his clothes and said that no-one would listen if he told. His God-fearing parents would never take the word of a child against a holy man. He’d been right, they hadn’t listened, so he’d used his fists on anyone who glanced at him and saw his shame. Until they labelled him hopeless, a lost cause, and finally set him free.

He was handsome alright. Handsome enough to make girls stare in the street and smile to catch his eye. Even Lissy. He shuddered at the image it conjured and smiled at how she’d made him feel. Happy and confused and most of all angry, but not at her.

He gathered his things as he thought, counting them in his head. The rope and knife and the sedatives at home, they were everything he would need. He cast a final glance at the uniforms stopping people on the prom then locked the front door and turned the notice to ‘having a ten minute break’. He slipped through the back and into his car then drove to the wood to bide his time.

*
**

“Annette, honestly. I have to move back home before I take an axe to my Mum’s Pavarotti tapes.”

Annette laughed despite herself, struggling to maintain her official face.

“It’s not safe, Lucia. We haven’t got to the bottom of things yet.”

Lucia rolled her eyes in exasperation and glared at her. Her voice matched.

“What more is there to find out? I can’t think of anyone who would do this to me. The patrols haven’t seen anyone outside my place since I moved out, and the texts came from a throwaway phone that was bought with cash. There’s nothing more you
can
do.”

“You can tell me about the phone-calls.”

Lucia screwed up her face trying to work out what she meant.

“What phone-calls? I only got letters and texts.”

“Oh yes, I meant to say. The letters were written by a man and posted from Belfast somewhere.”

“How do you know a man wrote them?”

“Forensics said the sentence construction was male, whatever that means. Anyway, don’t avoid the question. What about the phone-calls? They were on your home line.”

“I didn’t get any phone-calls, or any messages on my answerphone. Are you sure there were phone-calls?”

“Certain. They were routed through New York to throw us off the scent. Some virtual phone exchange. Davy’s in contact with them now, trying to trace the calls back. I want you to stay at your folks until we do.”

Lucia’s next words held a mixture of stubbornness and anguish. “God, Annette, do I really have to?”

Annette’s silence told her the answer was yes.

“Well then, you’d better explain to my Mum why her recording of ‘Nessun Dorma’ is in the bin. Then run, because she’s scary when she’s mad.”

Annette laughed. “Just one more night, I promise. That should give Davy time to trace it, then we’ll catch this pervert and have you back home.”