The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3) (9 page)

Her heart beat even faster, but she wouldn’t deny it, like St Peter in the garden. ‘Yes.’

He just nodded. ‘Have you a mammy, Kira?’

‘Yes. She’s – not too good now. Since Rose.’

‘Then that’s a shame, but you should go on home to her anyway. A nice girl like you shouldn’t be breaking into people’s houses.’

‘I didn’t break in! The door isn’t even shut.’

‘And the gate?’

She said nothing. He nodded again. ‘Kira, go home and look after your mammy. Do your qualifications. Get off this bloody island. That’s my advice. Go on now.’

She moved to the door. He held it open. She was rooting in her bag, her hands shaking. Her fingers closed on it, all clammy over Rose’s face. She took the picture out and held it up to him. In the picture Rose was being a bridesmaid for their cousin Shelly, who’d been in bad form all day because everyone said Rose looked like a model and people said Shelly looked lovely but only to her face and you could tell they didn’t really mean it. In it Rose had on a pink floaty dress and flowers in her hair, all blonde and pretty. She was smiling in a way that made you know she was laughing at the state of the dress and the long, boring ceremony where the minister had a lisp.

‘Look at her,’ said Kira, holding it up. ‘I want you to at least look at her picture.’

The man almost pushed her. ‘I mean it now, girl. Go on home. Don’t make me phone someone.’

She thought he meant the police, but later she thought he probably didn’t mean that.

Mr Collins was Kira’s favourite teacher at school. He thought she was ‘very bright’, he’d once told Mammy, and he lent her books and didn’t make her talk out loud in class or feel sorry for her. Or not too much. One day he had looked at her a bit funny and said: ‘Kira, I think you’re very brave. I just wanted to tell you.’

She’d have liked to say that was silly. It wasn’t brave to have something bad happen to you – you didn’t get any say in it. One book he gave her was about religions of the world, and how they thought about death. It was very interesting. There was one bit that said in India, if someone did you wrong – stole from you, say, or killed someone in your family – you went and sat outside their house for days and days until they gave you some kind of restitution. It was called
dharna
. In other countries, if someone killed you they could pay your family a thing called blood money. She asked Mr Collins what restitution meant and he perked up like a dog and started explaining it was when someone had taken something off you, or done something wrong to you, and they had to make amends for it. Restitution. She liked that word, rolling it over and over in her mouth, and the next day she read it again. And again.

Chapter Ten

‘Is it safe?’

‘It’s empty. The TSG have searched it. You can go in.’

As Paula moved from the warm, windy beach, April sun sparkling on the waves, into the cool drip of the caves, she felt a chill descend and couldn’t hide her shudder. Her feet slipped on seaweed and she heard the bladders pop under her feet. She’d given up any concession to fashion and was wearing walking boots and old tracksuit bottoms with the elastic all gone.

‘How far back do they go?’ She vaguely remembered learning about the sea caves in Geography at school.

‘We’re not sure.’ She could feel Guy’s hand almost brush her arm – as if he desperately wanted to take it, and in truth she wanted him to, but neither of them would move the extra inch. That seemed to sum up their relationship at the moment. ‘Dr Finney says it’s not all been explored and it may go back for miles. So don’t wander off.’

After high tide the only way into the caves would be by boat, or risking a very cold swim. The entrance was a shallow plane of rock, treacherously slippy, and as they moved in it opened up into a gloomy natural hall. Paula felt her heart quicken as the daylight receded and the only light was from the wavy halogen lamps the team had affixed. Corry was there shouting at everyone, zipped up like Lara Croft in black trousers and a jacket. ‘Careful of the walls! If there’s damage the council’ll have my hide.’ She rolled her eyes at Paula’s approach. ‘Is it too much to ask that you might just look at photographs, Dr Maguire?’

‘I need to see it with my own eyes. Let me take a look?’

‘If you must. Up here.’

Paula climbed another PSNI walkway into a slightly higher part of the cave. Below her it opened out into a sort of room. A room people had been living in. Clutching the stone walls, she peered down at Corry. ‘What is it?’

‘We don’t know. Go up and take a look.’

Up there the floor was sandy and dry, and she felt safer walking. The space was about four metres high and twenty across, vanishing at the back into a darkness full of drips and echoes. Five chairs had been put in a semi-circle. Ordinary chairs with wooden legs and arms, like you might get in a school. From the arms of each sagged heavy ropes, nylon ones like you could buy in B&Q, looping all the way down the legs and on to the next chair, so they were tied together. The other furniture in the room was a table, of similar dull office stock, and three chairs behind that.

There was a bucket underneath the table which gave out a very bad smell, and on top of the table was a ruled exercise book, the shreds of a few torn-out pages clinging to it. Several officers were walking about in white suits, taking pictures and dusting the items of furniture.

‘Don’t touch anything,’ said Corry, scrambling up behind Paula.

Paula ignored her; of course she wasn’t going to touch anything. ‘They were kept here? All five?’

‘We think so. It’ll be easy to check for DNA. The bucket is full of faeces and vomit, and look.’ She pointed to the arms of the nearest chair, which was crusted with a dried rusting substance – blood. Now Paula looked, she could see the sandy floor beneath each chair was also covered in dark stains.

She turned back to Corry. ‘Any prints?’

‘Loads. The whole place is full of them. Local kids come down here sometimes to drink and get up to no good – explains the stink of booze and piss.’

‘And the other three bombers?’

Corry shrugged. ‘You can see for yourself. Five chairs. Two bodies. There’s no sign of the others.’

‘The exercise book – is it the same one?’

‘We’ll be able to reconstruct from indentations, we hope, but yes, it looks like the same one used for the notes. There’s been several pages of dense writing on top of it.’

Paula turned and scanned the space, the expanse of dark rock overhead, full of moving shadows, and in the middle the dusty, nondescript chairs and table, their odd vines of rope and what she assumed was blood underneath. Her hands crept under her waterproof jacket to find the mound of the baby – warm, alive. In the dark, she could make out something stuck to the walls. ‘What’s that?’

‘Take a look,’ said Corry.

Paula stepped forward uncertainly, peering at the damp walls. It was pictures, fixed onto the walls with masking tape. The edges of the photos curling up. Faces and faces and faces. She counted – yes, sixteen. ‘All of them.’

‘Yes. Every victim of the bomb. A picture of each one.’

‘What do you think happened here?’ she asked Corry, after a moment taking it all in.

‘I was hoping you’d tell me. That is your job after all.’ Corry sighed. ‘I just don’t feel right bollocking you when you’re the size of a house. Can you not just have it and come back?’

‘I’m trying. I think – this is just a first impression.’

‘Go on.’

‘It reminds me of a courtroom. You know, the trial.’ She pointed. ‘A small person’s been tied to that middle chair – see the ropes are looser. In court, during the trial, they sat with Ni Chonnaill in the middle.’ She counted it off, squinting as she tried to remember the illustration in Maeve’s book. ‘From left – Flaherty, Brady, Ni Chonnaill, Lynch, Doyle.’

‘A courtroom.’ Corry was nodding. ‘I can see that. Passing judgement. Giving them the proper trial the government failed to provide.’

‘Yes. So this is our kill site, we think?’

‘One of them, anyway. There’s a large amount of blood in that corner there, consistent with Brady’s head being removed here.’

‘I’d agree.’ A white-clad figure was tramping across the floor to them, putting down its hood to reveal sandy hair and a handsome face. ‘Dr Maguire.’

‘Dr Finney.’ Their greetings were about as warm as the chill from the walls of the cave. She wasn’t sure what he was doing here – surely finding the site should have been the limit of his involvement.

He went on. ‘This is one of the few locations of the mineral we found on Brady and Doyle, so coupled with the odd set-up and obvious signs of restraint, this is the kill site.’ He pointed to the mouth of the cave. ‘There’s a large number of impressions there. It’s highly likely we can still find deposits on the shoes of the killer, or killers, and match it to those from the original crime scenes.’

‘It must be more than one killer,’ said Paula uneasily. There were three chairs behind the table. ‘Surely one person couldn’t have got them all here, set all this up.’

Finney nodded. ‘I’d agree with that too.’
I wasn’t asking you
, she thought tetchily.

There was movement at the opening to the cave. A young constable in uniform approached, stepping gingerly on the wet rocks, calling out to Corry. ‘Ma’am, they’ve found something in the woods. It was caught in the trees. Also, there’s some journalists at the cordon. Word must have got out.’

Paula tried not to show that she’d immediately thought of Aidan. He was world-class at working out the lie of the land in Ballyterrin.

‘Send them off,’ snapped Corry. ‘No one can see this. We have to keep it quiet as long as we can.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said the constable nervously, licking his cracked lips.

‘Show me what they found.’ Corry made a gesture with her hand. A CSI in a blue suit and mask appeared, handing something to her in a clear bag. She peered at it in the dim light at the cave’s entrance, then reached impatiently into the pocket of her jacket and flicked on a small torch. Paula saw what it was, and her heart dipped with a quick dart of nausea and fear. ‘Hair,’ said Corry, looking at it. ‘Blonde hair.’

‘Is it hers?’ Paula swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. ‘Is it Ni Chonnaill’s?’

‘Looks like it. So she was held here, along with the others. Only question is,’ said Corry, glancing around, ‘who was sitting in judgement on them?’

‘Paula! Look at you!’

‘I know, I’m huge.’

‘Not at all, you’re glowing. Come here.’ Saoirse’s husband Dave was always so nice. He clasped Paula in a bear hug so tight a small gasp escaped her.

‘That’s good, I’ll be in labour in no time with more of that.’

‘Sorry, sorry. What can I get you? No drink, I suppose.’

‘Sadly, no. I’ll just take a juice or something. Is – eh, is Aidan coming?’

Dave always seemed oblivious of the issues between Paula and Aidan, though he couldn’t possibly be. ‘He’ll be down later,’ he said. ‘Working late, it’s deadline day.’

Of course. She used to know things like that, in the brief hiatus when they were friends, or something, again.

Saoirse came into the living room, wiping her hands on an apron. She looked flushed and happy. Paula noticed because on seeing her, her friend’s face instantly fell. She tried to hide it. ‘Paula! Glad you could come. Might be the last time for a while, eh?’

‘It might indeed.’ She sank into the squashy grey sofa Dave indicated. ‘I can’t imagine another two months of this. I’m seriously about to pop.’

Saoirse’s expression didn’t change much, but Paula was reminded of a long-ago conversation, before she knew she was pregnant, and Saoirse was discussing her fertility issues: ‘
What I can’t stand is women complaining about their kids, or being pregnant. They don’t know how bloody lucky they are
.’

‘Anyway – how are you both?’ she said.

‘Well, I start stims next week. Then we wait for the egg harvesting.’

Paula couldn’t help but twitch. ‘Oh yes?’

‘All being well we could be pregnant by May,’ said Dave. Paula looked at Saoirse, knowing it wasn’t like her to be this positive. Luckily the bell went. Paula braced herself – was it, was it – yes. She heard Aidan’s voice. Her heart turned upside down.

‘I’ll go,’ said Dave, setting down his bottle of Peroni.

Saoirse was watching, her eyebrows raised. ‘I did say he’d be here.’

‘No, I know. I wanted to see him. It’s OK.’

Saoirse rose to kiss Aidan as he came in. He said to her, ‘Well, missus. You’re looking grand. When are you gonna ditch this fella here and run off with me?’

Saoirse laughed. ‘He could break you in two, pet.’

‘I know. Why do you think I’m pals with him?’ He spotted Paula and the laugh was gone from his face. ‘Hiya.’

‘Hi.’

‘You OK?’

‘Yep. Just . . . getting by.’ She waved her glass of juice feebly and resolved to go home after the main course.

When they were sitting down to the meal of Heston Blumenthal roast chicken, made by Dave, Saoirse brought up the case. ‘So you’re still looking for the Mayday lot? It’s been all over the news. Two of them are dead now?’

Paula set down a chicken bone. ‘Yeah. We’re still looking for the rest.’

‘I was working that day.’ Saoirse was also not drinking, which made for a sober, quiet gathering. Aidan had three beers and stopped, as if making the point that his drinking was under control. When things were bad it was whisky he went for, or more specifically, cheap supermarket bourbon, chasing oblivion at the bottom of a bottle.

‘In the hospital?’ They’d fallen out of touch back then, Paula and Saoirse. She’d never known her friend was in the thick of the bomb, while she watched it on TV in the safety of her London flat.

‘Yeah.’

‘It must have been awful.’

Saoirse toyed with her food. ‘We got word something had happened, and then they started coming in. I’ve never seen anything like it – we just weren’t equipped. Hundreds and hundreds. People were driving up and dropping out of the back of cars, just sliding out, there was so much blood. It was on my shoes, all the way up my legs even. And I just knew there were people I could – but there wasn’t time. There wasn’t time to get to everyone. I saw this wee girl – she’d been brought in on a stretcher, but she wasn’t – God, she wasn’t even whole, they should have seen she was dead but I suppose in the confusion – I always remember her. Only a baby, really.’

They’d all fallen silent.

Saoirse gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Sorry. I forget not everyone spends their days up to the eyeballs in blood and guts.’

Dave cleared his throat. ‘It was a terrible thing.’

Saoirse said, ‘I’ve been thinking a lot since then about why things happen. I mean, why did those people die and others didn’t? They were good people.’

‘There’s no reason to it,’ said Aidan, fiddling with the label on his last beer. ‘Things just happen.’

‘I mean, look at me. I tried to do everything right. Got married, worked hard – I help people all day long. And I have no baby while other people my age are on their third.’

‘It’s not fair,’ Aidan said again. ‘But life isn’t fair. All of us at this table know that. I was there that day too. I was stringing for one of the nationals back then and they sent me. Bonus to the first person to get a picture, they said. I got behind the cordons and I saw . . . I saw some of it. People laid out, like. They wrote numbers on their heads, some of them, to try to keep track. With a marker, like.’ He tore the label off his bottle. ‘Course, some of them didn’t actually have heads.’

Dave caught Paula’s eye over the table, and she saw his expression at the turn this conversation had taken. ‘Well,’ she said firmly. ‘It was very sad. But I’m sure you both helped people a lot that day.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Saoirse said quietly. ‘There were so many people I couldn’t get to.’

‘I wasn’t even trying to help,’ said Aidan. ‘Just to get shots of them dying.’

‘Well now,’ said Dave vaguely. ‘We all do the best we can, and we can’t do more.’

Paula stared down at her empty plate as silence fell again. ‘I should make a move,’ Aidan said, as if reading her mind.

‘Me too,’ she said, with relief.

Saoirse snapped out of the reverie she’d fallen into. ‘You’ll be over the limit, Aidan, you should leave your car here.’ He opened his mouth to protest. ‘Paula will leave you back.’

She glared at Saoirse, who stared pointedly back, and realised she did need to talk to Aidan alone after all.

Neither spoke during the short drive to his flat in town, but she was aware of every breath he took, every shift of his legs and creak of his leather jacket. He filled the car with a scent of tobacco and mint and something else that she could have picked out in a crowd as being the smell of him. ‘This is me.’