The Final Silence (23 page)

I will die before that happens.

IDA CARLISLE WAITED
in the hall for her husband. The good wooden floor creaked beneath her feet. It had cost thousands to put down. And the wallpaper. They’d called it wall covering in the fancy shop where she’d bought it, but it was just wallpaper really. And the bevelled mirror, and the telephone table, and the ornamental crystal.

So much money squandered on things, just things, nothing that truly mattered. She remembered the feeling of pride when the sales girl had told her the price of the wallpaper – per roll, mind, not for the whole lot – and realising she could afford it. Graham worked hard, she thought. We deserve nice things.

He was working now. Even as his only child lay on a slab with frost on her eyelashes, Graham Carlisle had gone to work. To see some people, he said. Important matters to attend to. He said he’d be back after lunch. The clock on the wall read close to three.

Ida had been standing here for an hour and a half. Waiting.

She heard the Range Rover’s engine. Tyres on the gravel, the engine dying. The car door opening and closing.

Ida closed her eyes and whispered a small prayer. When she opened them again, she saw her husband’s silhouette through the glass of the door. He turned his key in the lock, let himself in, closed the door behind him.

Graham Carlisle froze, staring at Ida.

She raised her right hand, aimed the pistol at his chest.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. His tongue worked behind his teeth, clicking wetly.

Like most politicians, Graham was allowed to keep a personal protection weapon. He had shown Ida how to use it, proud of himself for having such a thing. And pride was a sin. The Lord was punishing them both for their sin.

She indicated the good room. Where they hosted visitors. ‘Go in there,’ she said.

He swallowed, found the nerve to speak. ‘Ida, what are you doing?’

‘Just go in there and sit down,’ she said.

Graham stepped towards the open door, his eyes locked on her hand. ‘Please listen to me, Ida.’

‘No, you’re going to listen to me,’ she said, following him into the room. ‘Sit down.’

‘No, Ida, please listen—’

‘Sit down!’ The words tore at her throat.

Graham dropped onto the couch, his hands raised.

‘Ida, you could kill me with that.’

‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Now shut your mouth.’

Graham went quiet, and very still. She could barely hear his breathing as he stared up at her.

‘Why did you do it?’ she asked.

He wet his lips. Shook his head. ‘Do what?’

She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice. ‘Why did you kill our daughter?’

His mouth opened. His eyes glistened.

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Do you really think I did that?’

‘Don’t lie to me,’ she said. ‘Not now. You’ve lied to me for all the years I’ve known you. For the love of God, don’t lie to me now.’

A tear rolled down his cheek. ‘How can you think that?’

‘You’ve killed before,’ she said as she battled to keep control of herself. ‘You can do it again.’

‘That was a lifetime ago,’ he said. ‘I was a different man then. A boy, really. But you’re talking about my child. My own daughter.’

‘Your daughter,’ Ida echoed. ‘You never treated her like your own. You never really loved her, did you?’

‘Of course I did.’

‘Well, you never showed it. You cared more about your career than you did about her. Or me. You were never there for us. I raised her by myself.’

‘I was building a life for us.’

‘Not for us. For you.’

‘For us. Look at all the things you have. This house. All these things. You and Rea never wanted for anything. I slaved my guts out for the both of you.’

‘No, it was never for us. It was all for you. And you thought our daughter would ruin it for you, so you killed her. You bastard, you beat her to death so she wouldn’t go to the police.’

Graham slid from the couch, down to the floor, onto his knees. ‘No, I didn’t, I swear to our Lord Jesus, I did not harm our Rea. Didn’t you see the news this morning?’

‘What news?’

‘They named a suspect. That policeman Rea used to go out with. You said you’d met him. They named him this morning.’

Ida took a step closer. ‘They’re wrong. They’re all wrong. I know you did it. Don’t tell me you didn’t.’

‘I didn’t kill her. I swear to you.’

‘Then where were you when she died?’

‘I told you, I was swimming.’

‘You weren’t,’ she said. ‘I know that’s a lie. Tell me the truth.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed deep, opened them again. ‘All right. You want the truth.’

She kept the pistol trained on his forehead. ‘Go on.’

‘I never left the Brigade.’

She lowered the pistol a few inches. ‘What?’

‘I’m not active any more. Back then, before we married, I told them I wouldn’t be involved in any actions. But they asked me to stay as an adviser.’

‘You’re still . . .’

‘Just as an adviser. On political issues. I liaise between them and the party.’

‘But they’re criminals,’ Ida said. ‘Drug dealers. Murderers.’

‘We’re steering them away from all that. Trying to engage them. Trying to get them to think of their communities and what they can do for them.’

Ida raised the gun once more. ‘You’ve been lying to me all this time. You told me you were out of it.’

‘I’ve been working with them. Getting them away from all the sectarian nonsense, getting them to see past all the bigotry and the flags and the fear of the other side. Getting them to think about jobs, their children’s education, the things that really matter.’

He held his hands out before him, gesticulating to emphasise his point. Like a speech in the Assembly. Always the politician.

‘That doesn’t explain anything,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t bring my Rea back.’

‘I’m trying to tell you where I was that evening, and why I had to lie to the police. I was at a Brigade meeting. In East Belfast.’

Ida’s hands quivered. Tears blurred her vision. ‘You killed her. I know you did. You were afraid she’d go to the police with that book. With that photograph. Don’t you dare tell me any more lies.’

He shuffled forward on his knees. ‘I’m telling you the truth. Do you know how hard it is for me to tell you this? Please believe me, I am not lying.’

Ida stepped backwards. ‘Don’t come any closer.’

He got one foot under him. Reached out a hand. ‘You have to listen to me, Ida. Please give me the gun.’

‘No,’ she said. Tears hot on her cheeks. Her words rising from a growl to a shriek. ‘No, I’m not listening to you any more. I’ve listened to you for thirty-five years, and you’ve never once told me the truth. I’ve taken your abuse, your putting me down, your controlling me, suffocating me, I’ve taken it for a lifetime and I’m not going to take it any more.’

Her voice rang between the walls, consonants and vowels sharpened by hysteria.

‘Give me the gun,’ Graham said. ‘Ida, give me the gun.’

‘No. I won’t. Now you’re going to listen to me,’ she said.

His hand swiped towards hers. She lifted the gun away before he could grab it, brought it back to aim at his chest.

‘Give it to me,’ he said.

‘Shut your mouth, you lying bastard.’

He reached once more for the pistol. Once more, she whisked it away. Again, she aimed for his heart.

His face hardened. ‘Ida, one last time, give me that gun.’

‘No, I—’

He launched up and forward, grabbing. His hands locked around hers, strong and hard. He pulled the pistol towards his chest, pressed the muzzle against his sternum.

‘You really think I killed Rea? Then go on. You do what you have to do. Punish me for it.’

The pistol held seventeen bullets. Ida had counted every one. All she had to do was squeeze the trigger and send one ripping and tearing into his heart.

‘Do it,’ he said.

‘I hate you,’ she said.

Her grip softened, and her finger slipped out of the trigger guard. He removed the gun from her hands, popped out the magazine, checked the chamber, then threw the pistol to the floor.

The back of Graham’s hand made fireworks explode in Ida’s head. As she fell, her cheek coming to rest on the carpet, she saw the small black hole of the gun barrel, a dark tunnel disappearing into infinity.

THE BMW M5’S
firm suspension did Lennon no favours. Every pothole jarred up through the wheels, through the floor, and up into his side. He tried to keep the pain from his face. If Roscoe Patterson noticed from the driver’s seat, he didn’t let on.

‘So who’s this friend of yours?’ Lennon asked.

‘An auld hand,’ Patterson said. ‘Dixie Stoops. He’s from before my time, but there’s nothing he doesn’t know.’

Patterson steered the car through the estates and side streets that branched off the Upper Newtownards Road, to the east of the city. Union flags everywhere, the kerbstones painted red, white and blue.

Lennon had patrolled these streets back when he wore a uniform. Hatred and distrust of the police wasn’t as overt as in republican areas of the city – he seldom had stones thrown at him – but cops were nonetheless unwelcome. The people were as likely to clam up when asked if they’d seen or heard anything.

‘Here we go,’ Patterson said as he steered the BMW into a walled yard lined with sheds and a Portakabin. Timber lay stacked along one side, pallets of bricks and concrete blocks along another. The sign over the gate read
MORRIS MCREA & SONS CONTRACTORS.

Patterson pulled up alongside a low prefab building where a heavy-shouldered man waited by the door. He got out, and Lennon followed, suppressing a grunt as he hauled himself out of the car.

‘You rightly?’ Patterson asked the man at the door.

‘Aye. Yourself?’

‘Aye.’

The man opened the door and stepped back to allow Patterson and Lennon to enter. The interior was lit by dimmed bulbs, the walls painted black, decorated with flags and banners, a signed Glasgow Rangers football shirt, framed photographs of loyalists who had been killed, whether by republicans, the security forces, or their own people. A dozen round tables, each with an ashtray. A pool table. A poker machine. At one end, a makeshift bar and a row of coolers filled with bottles and cans lined up behind it.

There were illegal clubs like this scattered around Belfast, all of them run by paramilitaries of one stripe or another. Places where hard drinking was done by hard men, day or night.

At one of the tables, in the darkest corner, sat a lone man. Patterson headed towards him, Lennon following. The man stared at them both as they approached, his face like red-veined marble. Pushing seventy, Lennon guessed, but still strong. He kept his thick tattooed forearms across his belly, didn’t offer to shake Patterson’s hand.

‘This is Dixie Stoops,’ Patterson said. ‘Dixie, this is the fella I was telling you about.’

Dixie let his gaze crawl from one man to the other while he lifted a can of Harp lager from the table and took a swig.

‘I know your face,’ he said. ‘You were all over the news at lunchtime. They said you killed that wee girl.’

‘I didn’t do it,’ Lennon said.

Dixie cracked a smile. ‘Funny, I said the same thing when they put me away.’

Lennon felt the urge to slap the beer can from his hand, throw his weight around like he used to. Show Dixie who he was dealing with. But Lennon didn’t have the strength any more. Even at his advanced age, Dixie Stoops would eat him alive.

‘You arrested me one time,’ Dixie said.

‘Oh?’

‘Aye. You and some uniform boys stopped the car I was in. We had a rifle and some rounds in the boot. You gave me a hiding.’

‘Sorry about that,’ Lennon said. ‘I must’ve been having a bad day.’

‘Not as bad as me.’

‘Can I sit down?’

Dixie nodded to the chair opposite. Lennon took it as Patterson wandered off to what passed for a bar. He helped himself to a bottle of cheap import beer from one of the coolers.

‘So what do you want?’ Dixie asked.

‘Roscoe told me you might have known someone a few years back, someone I was interested in.’

‘Graham Carlisle,’ Dixie said. ‘The politician.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Listen, Roscoe asked me to talk to you because you’re a friend of his and I owe him a few favours. I don’t owe Graham Carlisle anything, but if I’d known you were mixed up in what happened to his daughter, I’d have stayed home.’

Lennon held Dixie’s gaze. ‘I didn’t kill Rea Carlisle, and if I’m going to prove that, I need to find out who did. I think there’s a connection to her father’s past.’

‘Jesus, this sounds like one of them murder books the wife reads. All right, go on, ask whatever you’re going to ask.’

‘How did you know Carlisle?’

‘I was head of the Sydenham area when he joined the East Belfast Brigade. He was only a young lad, maybe still a teenager. He was odd, though.’

‘Odd how?’

‘Well, he was at university. At Queen’s, doing law. We never had many student types joining up. Any education we got was behind bars. I got a degree in political science. Wouldn’t think it to look at me, would you?’

‘Any idea why he joined?’ Lennon asked.

‘Because his mates from the neighbourhood did. Same reason young men join gangs everywhere. To belong to something. To be somebody. Most of the lads round here, if they couldn’t get an apprenticeship, they were fucked. They had nothing, and they knew they’d never have anything. But you put a gun in a young lad’s hand, give him someone to point it at, then he feels like he’s something. You know what I mean?’

‘I know,’ Lennon said. ‘Doesn’t make it right.’

‘I never said it did.’ Dixie shook his head. ‘Jesus, if I’d known then what I know now, I’d never have listened to the politicians – the ones who were supposed to be looking out for us – when they were getting everyone stirred up. I’d have got the fuck out and made a decent life for myself.’

He leaned forward, rested his forearms on the table, making the tattoos writhe. ‘See, that’s what was so strange about Graham Carlisle. He had the brains to pass his Eleven-Plus and get into a good school, and then on to university. He could’ve made something of himself, and he did make something of himself. So I don’t know what he was doing with the likes of us. Anyway, he stopped active service around the time he got married, but the command wanted him around as an adviser. Strategy, the law, whatever. And he did a good job. They didn’t listen to him as much as they should have, they still don’t, but things would’ve been worse without him.’