The Broken Shore (26 page)

“Good thinking, lad. Maybe they’ll be able to give us something on their son.”

Craig shook his head, distracted. He wasn’t disagreeing with Liam but whatever the couple could give them wouldn’t alter what they knew. Melanie Trainor and Jonno Mulvenna had a son who’d been given up at birth. Trainor had framed Mulvenna to get him out of the way and the boy hated her for it, possibly even hated them both, it would depend whether he thought Mulvenna had known about him or not.

Craig wheeled round and left the floor without a word. Liam shrugged his shoulders at Nicky and followed, catching up with him at the lift.

“Mulvenna?”

“Mulvenna. If anyone can get through to the boy it will be him.”

“I thought you wanted to make sure with D.N.A. before you told him he might have a son?”

Craig shook his head. “No time.” Events had overtaken them and they had to move fast. Melanie Trainor might already be dead but if she wasn’t then Mulvenna was her only chance. He glanced at Liam knowing that he got the irony of the situation as well. The terrorist who’d killed so many police officers saving one of them. A lover saving the woman who’d betrayed him.

“Give me five minutes with Mulvenna then release the boy’s sketch to the media. We need to catch the evening news. Someone must have seen him.”

They exited the lift on the garage floor.

“Will do. I’ll stay here and help Annette with the parents and keep Andy up to date. You fine with Mulvenna by yourself?”

“Jake’s still at High Street, I’ll meet him there. See if you can get some idea where she might have been taken from the Fosters. It will be somewhere near the Trainor’s house. Somewhere quiet.”

They stared at each other for a moment and then nodded, knowing it was the end game in more than one way.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Danny Foster gazed down at his mother, flexing his fingers in the tight latex gloves. He was going to kill her, there was no doubt about that, but he needed to know first. What did he need to know? So many things, but the main one was why?

Melanie Trainor stared at the ground as he asked her the question repeatedly. Why? Yes, why, Melanie? Was it because you were ashamed of Jonno?

He wasn’t exactly a young girl’s dream of what she’d marry growing up. All those mornings at Sunday School, praying to a Protestant God, only to fall in love with a boy from the other side. She smiled to herself and her son watched her lips curl, wondering how she could smile this close to death. His fury grew. How could she smile when he been so unhappy all his life because of her choice? Then he glimpsed her eyes and saw that she was recalling another time.

Why, Melanie? She shook her head. It hadn’t been Jonno’s religion, if anything that added to the romance; love across the divide. If only he’d been a nice ordinary Catholic boy and not a terrorist, killing her colleagues as if he had some sort of right. Was that why she’d betrayed him? It would have been understandable if it were. No. Tell the truth, Melanie, it wasn’t done for honour, or loyalty to a higher cause. It was done for your career. A job, a salary and a car. Respect in a small village called Northern Ireland 1983, where everyone knew everyone and you had to marry the right boy, sod how happy you were.

A job and she’d betrayed her love. A job and she’d given up her child, married a good man and made his life hell. A job and she’d lost her daughter. She stared at the young man in front of her, knowing he was going to kill her. Hating him and loving him with one breath. Answering him with her bewildered stare in a way no words could ever have done. He read the book behind her eyes and asked another thing.

“Did my father know?”

The question hung between them and she saw desperate hope cross his face. If she told him the truth he would hate her even more and her life would be at an end, but…He was her son, he had to know the truth.

“He didn’t know. He doesn’t even know he has a child. I framed him for Veronica Jarvis’ murder to get him out of the way before my pregnancy showed.”

She paused, waiting for his first blow. Or joy, his next word. A question or a tirade, she would take whatever she could get, anything to hear his voice. But there was nothing. Only a silence so heavy that she had to fight to breathe. She risked some other words and waited for him to react. The silence deepened further and she said them again as if she could somehow make him hear.

“He was the love of my life. He still is.”

He stepped towards her and she closed her eyes, waiting to feel his hands around her neck, tightening and wringing until her life was gone and he’d achieved some peace. The sound of the door being locked and his steps moving away from the shed took a while to filter through. She opened her eyes slowly and stared round the empty space, realising she was out of danger for a while. But there was no relief. Her ambition had made her turn her back on everything that she’d loved thirty years before, and it had ruined both her children’s lives. She closed her eyes again, trying to shut out the guilt and let the tears flow.

***

Mulvenna glared at them resentfully and Craig and Jake stared back. But only for a second. They had a life to save.

“I’m going to get straight to the point, Mr Mulvenna. I can’t be one hundred percent sure until we match the D.N.A., but I’m as sure as I can be. You have a son and he’s about thirty years old.”

Mulvenna stared at him incredulously and then shook his head. “You’re wrong. I would have known. I wasn’t promiscuous and the last woman I dated before I went to jail was in New York.”

Craig gave him a sceptical look then spoke in a tone to match. “That’s not true, and if you’re trying to protect Melanie Trainor, then don’t. We know all about your relationship. More than you do.”

Mulvenna looked shocked then he laughed. “I doubt it somehow.”

Craig continued unrelentingly. “She was running Declan Wasson as an informant and when he raped and killed Ronni Jarvis the powers that be decided he was too valuable to lock up. Melanie Trainor chose you instead.”

He leaned forward as Jake looked on and learned. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that you were a strange choice of patsy? You’d been in the States on and off since ’81. You were out of the game.”

Mulvenna nodded. He’d lost his appetite for killing and volunteered to go abroad. The only thing that had brought him back had been Melanie.

“I was still a wanted man. No-one was going to cry about me being sent down.”

“And you just accepted it without a word, knowing how you’d be treated in prison. Were you really that tired of life? Or was it because you were protecting someone you loved?”

“If you know about me and Melanie then you already know the answer to that. She needed a patsy and I was close at hand. It was the least I could do for jeopardising her career. She’d worked too hard to throw it away on a loser like me.”

“But you loved her.”

Mulvenna nodded. “And I could show that by getting the hell out of her life and keeping quiet.”

Craig shook his head. “Her career wasn’t the only reason she wanted you off-side.”

Mulvenna shot him a questioning look.

“She was pregnant with your son and she didn’t want you to know. She gave him up for adoption a week after he was born.”

They watched as shock and disbelief rushed across Mulvenna’s face. It changed swiftly to anger and he sprang to his feet. Jake leaped up too, ready to move. Craig waved him back down and listened as Mulvenna called him a liar and a bastard until he was tired, then he slumped back in his chair and Craig saw realisation dawn. The room was silent for a moment then Craig started to speak. He quickly outlined their suspicions about Lissy’s death, the sketch of the man seen talking to her on the front and the D.N.A. from the hair found in her hand. He ended with the biggest shock of all.

“He’s kidnapped ACC Trainor. She was taken sometime last night. We believe he’s going to kill her for having him adopted. We need your help.”

Mulvenna stayed mute as competing thoughts deepened the lines on his face. Craig could almost hear them from where he sat. How could she? What is he like? He’s turned out to be a killer, is that my fault? What do I care if she dies, she lied to me? And more. Craig urged him out of his thoughts.

“Her time is limited. Either she’s dead or they’re talking, and if they talk he may find out that you didn’t know and get even angrier with his Mum. You’re our one hope of stopping him.”

“How can I stop him? He’ll be ashamed. A mother who gave him away and a father who was a terrorist. At least if he didn’t know who his father was, he could imagine a better man.”

Craig brushed his self-pitying aside.

“You’ve served your time and you’re an artist now. There’s a future for you; and for him, if we can stop him now. Are you going to help us? I need to know now.”

Mulvenna hesitated then nodded once and Craig headed for the door, signalling Jake to un-cuff him and bring him along. He needed a conversation with the Chief Constable then they were going on TV. He just prayed that Annette had got something useful from the Fosters or they’d be hunting nationwide.

***

The elderly woman sat in the C.C.U.’s relative’s room hunched on the edge of the black leather sofa, clutching her shabby leather handbag in her hands. She was around seventy, older than Annette had thought. A glance at the adoption file told her why. Adele Foster, forty-two-years-old, wife of Nigel. Unable to have children of their own, they’d finally approached the church elders for their help. They ran a small adoption society for their congregation, supplying babies to God-fearing couples whose options were running out. Six months after joining it was ‘To Adele and Nigel, a baby son’ and rejoicing all around.

Annette scrutinised the woman in front of her, taking in the tired tweed coat buttoned up to the neck and her sensible shoes. She looked like she had a matching approach to life. It must have been a barrel of laughs for the kid. She tried to picture his loneliness. A solitary child making its own fun on the farm, in between chores and prayers. And beatings no doubt. She added them mentally one by one, picturing the hard-handed farmer, beating the fear of God into his son for his own good, ignoring the frisson of pleasure he got with every stroke.

He was dead now, but not soon enough to prevent the stain of fear and submission that indelibly smeared his wife’s face, even after his death. She pictured her weak attempts to temper his father’s ire when the boy inevitably did something wrong. He was a child and children aren’t privy to the harsh standards their parents judge them by. They play and laugh until it’s beaten out of them.

Annette pushed the tea tray across the table until it touched the woman’s knees, rousing her from her trance. She dragged her eyes up slowly to meet Annette’s, letting her glimpse a semblance of regret before she brushed it away, afraid to betray the husband who was dead. Annette read her instantly and altered her pose from one of sympathy to an interview. This woman would concede nothing about the blame she held for the tragedy unfolding miles away. She wore her guilt like a metal cilice, tightening it with every blink. She was a hostile witness now and that made her fair game.

***

Craig was driving blind, pointing the car north on the A26 towards the Atlantic coast and hoping the phone would go any minute and Annette would give them something to put in their G.P.S. Finally she called.

“The mother says Danny used to go orienteering with his school in Downhill Forest. There was a small hut there that he used to run to when he was upset.”

That would have been pretty often if her instinct about his childhood was right.

“It’s somewhere off the Ulster Way, sir. She doesn’t know any more than that.”

“Good work, Annette, get Andy to head there now and we’ll meet him. And tell him he’ll need Armed Response.” He paused then added more quietly. “They called him Danny?”

“Yes. After Daniel in the Bible.”

Craig watched Mulvenna’s expression change from the shock he’d been wearing for the past half hour to a softer surprise. The son he hadn’t known existed had a name. Danny. Craig was about to cut the call when Annette had another thought.

“What if he’s found out about Mulvenna not knowing, sir? He’ll either have killed the ACC already and left to find him, or he’ll go looking for him then head back later to finish her off.”

Craig thought for a moment. She was right. He said so then pulled the car over to the verge, working out the options. Andy could lay siege to the hut with the ARU. Either Danny Foster was inside with the ACC, in which case it became a hostage negotiation and they still had time to get there with Mulvenna to try to talk him down. Or he’d already left and they’d find the ACC alone, alive or dead, leaving Mulvenna’s son out hunting for his Dad. Where would he hunt him? Annette waited in silence until finally Craig spoke.

“Stake out Mulvenna’s house on the Mussenden Road, Annette. You lead on that and take an ARU. They’re not to shoot unless it’s absolutely necessary. Get Liam for me, please.”

Two seconds later, Liam’s bass was echoing around the car. “Boss?”

“Liam. Andy’s going to Downhill Forest to find the ACC and Annette’s staking out Mulvenna’s house in case the boy goes there. I’ll wait here until Andy says she’s alive or dead. If the boy’s not there then we’ll meet you at the art gallery on the Lisburn Road. The odds are it will be the second place he’ll look for Mulvenna. The exhibition’s been advertised all over N.I.”

The line clicked off and they sat back to wait. Craig’s gut told him Melanie Trainor was still alive. Not because she deserved to be, that was for sure, but because if the boy had had his father’s ignorance confirmed then he had bigger fish to fry.

Chapter Thirty

Andy circled the small hut silently, motioning the black-suited armed response team to spread out and form a perimeter twenty metres back. When he was satisfied they were in place he lifted the megaphone to his mouth and gave the warning they were obliged to give. He’d always thought it was stupid; telling a perp you were there and losing the element of surprise, but rules were rules. The wood’s icy quiet was broken only by the groan of the trees overhead, thrust roughly back and forth by the rising north wind.

He gave the warning again, then signalled a single officer to move stealthily towards the building’s rear, working the odds that their target would watch the front. The slim figure slipped through the trees and pressed himself against the hut’s wooden wall. He pointed his Heckler-Koch downwards and pressed his eyes bravely to the wooden slats, knowing that an armed assailant would shoot if he saw their whites. He peered into the darkness searching for signs of a man with a gun but only a huddled shape on the floor came into focus in the gloom.

Andy held his breath as the wind lifted, transforming the forest’s groan to a high-pitched whine that still didn’t drown out his thumping heart. For a few seconds nothing moved then the officer turned and raised his thumb, giving the signal it was safe to approach. The cordon shrank cautiously towards the hut until finally Andy stood by the door waiting while it was checked for a booby trap, then it was opened slowly and they counted off one by one.

“Perimeter safe, check. Armed target, no. Hostage secured, check.”

It was almost surreal and he had to smile. Play-station games had nothing on this. He strode through the door and saw the huddled figure of Melanie Trainor inside. She was lying on the hut’s grubby floor, dishevelled and crying and clutching a blanket around her. He motioned the others to stay outside; she wouldn’t thank them for seeing her weak. He was wrong. As he hunkered down in front of her she grasped his hand, much more like a victim than the woman they all feared so much. Her words surprised him with their desperation.

“Don’t let them kill him. Please, please, they mustn’t shoot him. It’s my fault, I’m to blame. I’m not pressing charges. I came willingly, that’s what I’ll say. He’s not to be harmed, please. Promise me, promise me.”

She gripped Andy’s hand tighter and a look of fear spread over her face. “He’s gone to find Jonno. I don’t know what he’ll do. Find Jonno Mulvenna, protect him. Please protect him.” She wrung his hand so hard that his fingers turned white. Her voice was wild. “Promise me, promise me. You have to swear you’ll protect them both.”

Andy stared at her in disbelief. Danny Foster had killed her daughter and kidnapped her and Mulvenna was a known terrorist, and she was begging him to save them both. He saw the look in her eyes and nodded, freeing his hand gently and walking to the door. One minute later he was connected to Craig.

“The ACC’s OK. Not making much sense, but OK. She’s begging us to protect the man who kidnapped her, and Jonno Mulvenna of all people. She says he’s looking for him. Any idea why?”

Craig put the phone on speaker and drove the car over the central reservation into a U-turn. He accelerated down the A26 towards Belfast yelling into the dash.

“The boy’s her son, Andy. Jonno Mulvenna’s the father.”

“What?”

“Long story. I’ll fill you in later. Ask her if she has any idea where he was heading?”

There was silence for a moment as Melanie Trainor murmured in the background, then Andy answered no. Craig nodded Jake to bring him up to date and slipped through the traffic like he’d been pursuit driving all his life.

“The boss is heading for the art gallery on the Lisburn Road. We’re meeting Liam there. Annette’s covering Mulvenna’s house on Mussenden with an ARU.”

“She says they’re not to shoot him, Jake. And she’s still the ACC.”

Craig interjected. “Tell her we’ll do our best, but she’s suspended, Andy. We take our orders from the Chief Constable. Give him a call and bring him up to date, please, then get her to a hospital.”

He motioned Jake to cut the call. Twenty minutes later they were approaching the Lisburn Road. The ACC had said her son had left about fifty minutes before and it was at least an hour from the forest to Belfast. It had only taken them twenty minutes to retrace their steps, with any luck they’d get there first. As they neared the gallery Craig knew Melanie Trainor had got her times wrong.

Liam was standing by a patrol car parked on the other side of the road, leaning his elbow on its roof. He was muttering into a radio mike and frowning. Craig parked in Cranmore Park and approached on foot, motioning Jake and Mulvenna to stay in the car.

“What have you got, Liam?”

He gestured tiredly across the street. “Mulvenna’s lad has taken a girl hostage in the gallery and he’s demanding to see him. He’s carrying a machine pistol. Looks like a Steyr. I’ve called armed response back from Mulvenna’s house.”

Craig squinted across the street into the low-lying winter sun. Through the glass-fronted façade of the small gallery he saw a girl he guessed was Sonya Murray, the receptionist Jake said he’d spoken to two days before. She was pressed against the front window staring wildly at them through the glass, her body rigid with fear. Leaning against the gallery’s back wall, deep in the shadows, was a tall dark shape. Craig could make out a gun. Liam had been right. It was a Steyr Tactical Machine Pistol. Lethal. Danny Foster wasn’t messing about. He gave Liam an update.

“The ACC’s desperate for him not to be hurt, blames herself for everything.”

“Aye, well, so she bloody should. The poor bastard’s so fucked up he’d killed his own sister to get revenge. That’s at Trainor’s door.”

“He killed Lissy, not the ACC, Liam. Let’s not forget that. Anyway we can debate who’s guilty when we’ve sorted this out.” Craig rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “OK. Has he made any demands?”

“Not a one. He hasn’t said a dicky bird. Just pointed the gun at the girl once and made her stand at the front, that’s all.”

“He’s telling us what he’ll do. OK.”

Craig slipped his Glock from its holster and placed it on the car roof, then he took off his jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves. Liam knew what he was planning and shook his head hard.

“No bloody way, boss. I’m not letting you cross that road to get shot.”

Craig turned to his friend with a wry smile. “I’ve no intention of getting shot, believe me, not until you pay me back for all the beers I’ve bought. But if I can bring him in peacefully then that’s what I’m going to do. Trust me on this one.”

Before Liam could answer Craig had raised his arms and walked across the narrow road, stopping at the window in front of the girl. He smiled reassuringly at her through the glass then he spoke. His voice was clear and strong, stronger than he felt.

“Danny, I’m Marc Craig. I’m not armed. I’m here to find out what you need to end this peacefully.”

He was answered by complete silence. No-one in the street moved and there wasn’t a sound except for the radios echoing through the cold November air. Liam signalled everyone to turn them down and stared at Craig’s lean back. He had a random thought that his arms would get sore then he shook it away as Craig started talking again.

“OK, Danny. Then let me tell you what I think you want. You want to see your father, Jonno Mulvenna.”

The gun barrel twitched at the back of the shop and Craig knew that he’d hit a nerve. He pushed on, risking his life on a hunch. Annette had described Adele Foster’s tight-lipped coldness and abject refusal to answer questions about her husband or son. If Annette had read her lack of words and body language right, there’d been no love lost between them. One glance at the well-worn bible protruding from the woman’s handbag and the large silver cross around her neck said the couple had ruled the boy by the strict word of God, Old Testament style. It was only a short step from there to beatings and abuse. Craig could hear Annette’s words in his ear.

“It’s only my opinion, sir. I can’t be sure.”

Annette’s people-reading skills were better than anyone else’s he knew and he prayed she was right this time. He was about to risk lives on it.

“You’ve had a very rough time, Danny. We know the truth of your childhood. No-one should have to suffer all that. It wasn’t your fault, you were a child. Melanie Trainor isn’t pressing charges for kidnap and she wants us to tell you that she was wrong. It’s all her fault for giving you away.” He swallowed hard then repeated what Trainor had just told Andy. “She regretted her decision and tried to get you back many times, but she was told the adoption was final.” The gun twitched again but Craig pressed on. “Your father didn’t know you existed until an hour ago when I told him, Danny. He didn’t even know she was pregnant. He wants to meet you. I’ve got him here with me. In the car.”

Nothing moved inside the gallery and for a moment Craig thought Foster hadn’t heard then a broken, deep voice came through the glass. It sounded tortured and Craig could only imagine what the boy had been through. If Annette’s instincts were anything to go by he’d been abused and beaten for years. He could hear every stroke of it in the pain of his next words.

“She didn’t want me, so why should I believe that he will?”

Tears pricked at Craig’s eyes as he heard years of ruined childhood in the phrase. But there was no time for sympathy. Only honesty could end this; sympathy could come later. Craig’s voice softened slightly and he gazed protectively into the young girl’s eyes. They were wide and green and he could see her legs trembling from where he stood. He wanted to reach through the glass and steady her but all he had were his voice and brain.

“Because he’s here now, Danny, and he wants to meet you. Will you at least talk to him?”

After a minute the dark shape nodded. It was progress.

“OK. I’m going to turn round now and signal that I want him brought here, beside me. OK?”

He was answered by a grunt and he turned slowly, nodding Jake to bring Mulvenna from the car. Mulvenna took off his leather jacket mimicking Craig and walked hurriedly across the street to stand by his side. He peered through the glass and then spoke to his son for the first time in his life.

“Danny? I’m your father, John Mulvenna.”

Craig watched as Mulvenna spoke coolly to the young man. Danny Foster could shoot all of them in the time it took for them to turn and run but Mulvenna didn’t show a single nerve. His voice was steady as he recounted how much he’d loved Melanie Trainor but their relationship had been marred by the times they lived in.

“Try not to blame your mother, son. She was young and she made mistakes.”

Harsh words cut across him and Craig saw the pistol jerk.

“She gave me away and she lied to you, for a poxy job! A job, for God’s sake.” His hurt was visceral. “I should have had two parents who loved me and a home, instead I got the Fosters. They beat me every day and said it was God’s will. It was all her fault.” Tears clogged his voice and Craig thought he see them glistening on the dark figure’s cheeks. “She did this to me, and you. Her. That bitch. For a fucking job.”

Mulvenna interrupted firmly, as if he’d been a father all his life, soothing his son with his tone and words. His next words shocked Craig, and then he knew it was what he had to do.

“Let me come in, son, and see you. I want to talk to you face to face. Just me, I promise.”

They both heard the sobs that the words provoked. They were the sobs of a child not a man. A young boy, beaten and unloved and exhausted from struggling alone.

“I killed her, Dad. She was nice to me and I killed her.”

“Lissy?”

The shape nodded and went on. “I had to make the bitch feel the pain she’d caused. I had to do something that would make her see.” He sobbed so harshly that Craig could hear it tearing at his throat. “I didn’t want to hurt Lissy, but I had to make her see.”

“All right, son. We can talk about all of that. Now let me come in and let the girl go. Please. She’s frightened and she’s done you no harm.”

Mulvenna glanced at Craig and he saw serenity in the new father’s eyes that said this was right, then Mulvenna swung the glass door open and stepped inside. A moment later the girl stumbled out of the gallery and into Craig’s arms. He signalled Jake to guide her across the street and held his position as he watched. Danny Foster and his father moved to the back of the gallery and sat on the floor against the back wall, hidden behind high canvases shielding them from view. Craig could hear them starting to talk. He walked back to Liam to stand post, ready to wait for as long as it took.

***

It was hours before Jonno Mulvenna stepped onto the street, beckoning Craig over with an order for food. He walked back into the gallery with his parcel as the day dimmed into evening and the blue lights of the squad cars flashed into high relief. It added to the prosperous road’s pre-Christmas air and Craig could make out late-night shoppers beyond the cordon going about their business just like on any other day. It was bizarre, but then so was what was happening in the gallery fifty metres away.

Finally at ten o’clock the glass door re-opened and Jonno Mulvenna beckoned Craig across the street. Craig went to remove his jacket again but Mulvenna shook his head, signalling that everything was OK. When he reached the door Mulvenna beckoned him in, his glance saying it was safe. At the back of the small white gallery Danny Foster was sitting on the marbled floor, his head resting in his arms like a child. The Steyr was lying ten feet away, disabled, its magazine sitting on a chair.

“The gun’s no threat. I stripped it down.”

Craig stared at him, knowing that he’d done it many times before.

“Danny and I have had our first chat and he knows that we’ll have a lot more.” He smiled at his son and the young man shot a weak smile back. “I’m coming with him to the station and I’ll not be leaving him ever again. He knows that too.” He smiled at the boy again. “Don’t you, son?”

Foster nodded uncertainly and Craig saw a flash of doubt in his eyes. It didn’t matter. Time would prove that he had a father now, one who would never mistreat him or leave.