Those We Left Behind (10 page)

PAULA CUNNINGHAM READ
the wine bottle’s label.

No, not tonight, she thought, and put the bottle back in the fridge. The hangover had dragged on her all day, coating each of her senses, dulling them all. Part of her knew that at some point later in the evening she’d open the fridge again, open the bottle, and pour a glass. But for now, she could pretend that wouldn’t happen.

The microwave pinged as Cunningham poured herself a pint glass full of water. Angus followed her from the kitchen to the living room, tail wagging, staring in hope at the plate in her hand. She flicked through TV channels as she ate, seeking out the most brainless trash she could find. Alex had always given her a hard time about her taste in television, never seeming to understand how badly she needed the vacuous pleasure of these programmes after the days she had. Maybe after a day selling newspaper ad space Alex desired something more cerebral, but having spent hours in the company of violent offenders, Cunningham needed shows about competitive brides and amateur cooks.

She scolded herself for letting her mind wander back to her former partner. More than a year, and there was Alex, still interrupting her simple joys of microwaved curry and trashy television.

‘Get out of my fucking head,’ she said aloud.

Angus looked up from his spot by her feet.

‘What?’ she said. ‘Are you judging me?’

Sixty minutes had passed, and a whole recorded episode of
The Only Way is Essex
, when the doorbell rang. Angus had pre-empted the chime, sitting up, ears erect at a sound she hadn’t heard. Then a furious peal of barking, his nails scrabbling on the once-glossy floorboards as he tried to sprint to the hall.

Cunningham followed him out, saw the shape of a man through the frosted glass of her door. She pointed back to the living room. ‘Angus, in.’

Angus put his paws up on the glass, his barks ringing through the hall.

‘For Christ’s sake, Angus, come on, in, now.’

The dog ignored her. She grabbed his collar, hauled him back to the living room, closed him inside. His barking rose in intensity, the door rattling in its frame as he scratched at it.

Cunningham went back to the front door, opened it, trapped a breath in her chest as she recognised the young man on her step.

‘Paula Cunningham,’ he said.

The same young man who had watched her buying coffee that morning.

‘My name’s Daniel Rolston,’ he said.

She stared at him for seconds on end before she thought to ask, ‘What do you want?’

He cleared his throat. His hands shook. Fear radiated from him, the kind of fear that turns to anger. Cunningham eased the door a few inches closer to its frame.

‘My parents were Jenny and David Rolston. Ciaran Devine was convicted of killing my father. Thomas was convicted as an accessory.’

‘Okay,’ Cunningham said, adrenalin charging through her system. ‘Again, what do you want?’

Angus’s barking had not abated. His nails still scratched at the door. Cunningham silently wished she had not closed him in, had held him here by the collar, let him growl and show his teeth to this visitor.

‘I want to talk to you,’ Daniel Rolston said.

‘I don’t think we have anything to talk about,’ Cunningham said, hoping the tremor was not audible in her voice.

‘We do,’ Daniel said. He gave her a smile that he probably intended to be friendly. ‘I’m sorry, I know this is a bit out of the blue, me calling like this.’

‘How did you get my address?’ she asked.

‘Through work,’ Daniel said. His eyes widened as soon as he spoke, a clear realisation that he’d said too much.

‘Your work?’ Cunningham asked. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Look, I just need to—’

‘Daniel, I think you should go now. If you want to talk about Ciaran Devine’s case, call the Probation Board and they’ll set up an appointment for you. Then you can sit down with me and my department head, and you can ask us anything you want.’

Daniel’s smile faltered. ‘But I want to talk to you now. It won’t take long, honestly.’

‘Daniel, I’m going to close the door now. If you don’t leave, then I’m going to call the police. Do you understand?’

‘Please don’t,’ he said, putting his hands up.

‘I’m closing the door now, Daniel. Please leave.’

‘It wasn’t Ciaran,’ he said.

Cunningham pushed the door, but Daniel blocked it with his hand.

‘All this time, everyone thought it was Ciaran. Right from the start. But they were wrong.’

‘Please move your hand,’ Cunningham said.

Trembling now, but she kept it hidden. The barking from the other end of the hall had reached a level of hysteria, Angus sensing her distress from the other side of the wood.

‘Listen to me,’ Daniel said. ‘Please just give me five minutes.’

She put her shoulder to the door, shoved it closed, locked it.

From outside, his voice. ‘It was Thomas. I tried to tell them at the time, the police, everybody, but nobody would listen to me. They wouldn’t even let me say it in court. It wasn’t Ciaran. It was never Ciaran.’

‘Daniel, I’m calling the police.’

Her mobile was on the coffee table in the living room. She opened the door, and Angus bolted past her, charged along the hall. Through the glass, she saw Daniel step back. But still he talked – no – shouted now.

‘You ask him. You get the truth out of him. He confessed for his brother. They destroyed my family, the two of them. They destroyed my life. And they’ve lied all this time.’

Cunningham took her phone from the table, dialled the emergency number, said, ‘Police, please.’

By the time the marked car pulled up outside, Daniel had gone.

DANIEL WAS STILL
shaking by the time he got home. He knew it was a mistake before he did it, but he had gone to the probation woman’s house anyway. In his mind, two hours ago, it seemed better to talk to her at home than tackle her on the street. He had told himself she would feel less threatened that way.

The mistake became clear as soon as she opened her door. He had walked for more than an hour after he left her front garden, the dog barking inside the house. Up one street, down the next, cutting through alleyways. Each street looked much like the next, the same small houses, the same bedraggled Union flags hanging from the lamp posts.

He realised he’d lost his bearings when he recognised a mural that he’d passed fifteen minutes before. Where was he? He stopped on a corner and turned in a circle, looking all around. His mobile couldn’t pick up a 3G signal, so the map feature would do him no good. A roar in the darkening sky drew his attention and he saw lights descending towards the airport.

That way was north. The railway line he’d used to get here was also in that direction. A light drizzle began to fall as he walked. Five minutes brought him to the platform and the small shelter. Twenty minutes before a city-bound train arrived.

Daniel watched the glittering buildings through the window, Belfast looking like a proper city from here. If he searched, he’d find the building he worked in. He remembered telling the probation woman how he’d found her. No point in worrying now, he thought.

He exited Great Victoria Street station, walked through the arcade that cut beneath the Europa Hotel, past the sculptures of the Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker, the figures of two stout women in bronze. Someone had draped strings of beads around their necks. The noise of the street jarred his senses, the traffic, the hordes of people. The string of bars across the road called to him, even if they were jammed with tourists and drunks, but he kept his head down and walked south-east. Close to twenty minutes later, he reached his apartment building with its view over building sites and car parks.

Niamh met him in the hall, already in her pyjamas.

‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, her voice carrying a mix of anger and concern.

‘I had a few things to do,’ he said.

‘I called your work. They said you left before lunch.’

Daniel stepped past her into the kitchen. He opened the fridge, asked, ‘Is there anything to eat?’

Niamh stood in the doorway, arms folded. ‘What have you been doing all day?’

‘Just some messages,’ he said. ‘I’d a few things I needed to get in town. That’s all.’

The buzzer in the hall rang.

Niamh went to lift the telephone handset by the door.

‘No,’ Daniel said, rushing after her. ‘I’ll get it.’

She lifted the handset, saying, ‘It’s all right, I’ve got it.’

He tried to snatch the handset from her, but she wouldn’t let go. They tussled over it for a second or two until he pushed her back, harder than he’d intended. She stumbled against the wall, hit the side of her head against the plaster. He couldn’t meet her gaze when she stared back at him.

Daniel brought the handset to his ear, and Niamh punched his arm as she passed him on the way to the living room. He felt the rush of displaced air as she slammed the door.

‘Hello?’ he said, knowing already who it was.

Niamh lingered in the kitchen doorway, her face expressionless, as Daniel spoke with the police officers around the small dining table. A sergeant and a constable, both tall men, dark green uniforms. He noticed the pistols at their belts. They smelled of fried food. He pictured them in their patrol car, parked up in some side street, eating fish and chips.

The sergeant did most of the talking. He said there would be no further action, they just wanted a quick chat. No harm done. But don’t go back.

‘I won’t,’ Daniel said. ‘I shouldn’t have gone in the first place. Please pass on my apologies.’

‘Miss Cunningham believes you were following her this morning,’ the sergeant said. ‘And that you’d followed her and a client yesterday. Is that correct?’

Daniel cleared his throat. ‘That client confessed to killing my father.’

‘That’s as may be,’ the sergeant said, ‘but Miss Cunningham is just doing her job, and you’ve no call to be harassing her. If you have an issue with how the Probation Board has handled things, then there are ways of raising your concerns with them. You don’t go doorstepping people. Now, I believe you got Miss Cunningham’s address through your workplace. Where’s that, exactly?’

The sergeant wrote on his notepad as Daniel told him. ‘Hang on, you’re not going to tell them what happened, are you?’

‘I’m not,’ the sergeant said. ‘But if Miss Cunningham wants to make a complaint about how you used her information, then I think she’s entitled, don’t you?’

Daniel said nothing. Over the sergeant’s shoulder, he saw Niamh close her eyes and shake her head. Her lips so thin they almost disappeared.

‘Anyway, I think you’ve got the message.’ The sergeant got to his feet. ‘I don’t want to be hearing any more about this. Understood?’

‘Yes,’ Daniel said.

The policemen saw themselves out. They did not speak to Niamh as they passed. She came to the table, sat down opposite Daniel. He kept his gaze on the grain of the oak tabletop.

After a while, she said, ‘Well?’

Daniel swallowed. ‘Can we talk about it tomorrow?’

‘No, we can talk about it now.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘You could start with telling me why.’

He looked up, met her gaze, saw the anger there. ‘I thought if I could just talk to her, get her to ask Ciaran the right questions, maybe she could get the truth out of him.’

‘But what good would it do now? They served their sentences. Even if the wrong one was convicted, they both did time. What could you possibly gain from this?’

‘I could clear my father’s name. They said he was abusing Thomas. The things they said my father did. That never went away. Even though nothing was ever proved, what they said followed me and my mother around. You know what happened to Mum, what those lies did to her.’

A little of the anger faded from Niamh’s eyes. ‘Yes, I know. But you can’t help her now. You can’t change anything.’

‘I can’t help her, but what about me? I can help myself. What’s so wrong with that?’

She reached for his hand, held it tight. ‘Look, I understand how angry you are. I know how important all this is to you. But if we’re going to stay together, you have to promise me you’ll let it go. Maybe get some counselling. Maybe we could go away for a couple of weeks. Whatever it takes to help you get past this.’

Daniel shook his head. ‘If you really understood how I felt, you’d know there isn’t any getting past this.’

Tears formed in her eyes. ‘Then where does that leave us?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Niamh slept on her own in the bedroom while Daniel took the couch in the living room. Sleep came and went in slow waves, bringing memories and dreams, the real and the unreal overlapping. He recalled his mother’s long decline, how she had crumbled from the inside out. The pills from the doctor dulling her edges but not flushing out the rot that had taken hold of her mind. He had gone to live with his aunt and uncle, their children viewing him with the same distrust as he had viewed the foster kids that had invaded his own home over the years.

He remembered his aunt taking him to see his mother – still in the old house, in spite of everything – the weekend before the news of her suicide came. She had seemed better, more alert, more positive. Changes, she had said. She was going to make changes, make things better, so Daniel could come back home.

Then, three days later, she had driven for miles along the Ards Peninsula and found a small, isolated beach. There, she had undressed at the edge of the water, and walked naked into the surf. Her body washed up two days later. The coroner had said the cold probably killed her before she drowned.

Daniel did not cry at his mother’s funeral. He would not allow himself.

The next morning, Niamh left for work without speaking to him.

A text message from Melanie Sherry at 8:37 a.m. asked him to call in to her office at ten-thirty. Daniel showered, dressed in fresh clothes, and went to catch the bus.

WEARINESS DRIED FLANAGAN’S
eyes as she stepped from the shower and towelled herself. She went to the mirror over the hand basin, watched her reflection as she ran a brush through her wet hair.

She did not look down.

With no conscious effort, she had developed a knack for avoiding seeing her body. She had only become aware of the habit of aversion in recent weeks and quickly decided she could forgive herself for this foible. Now, she made herself look.

It wasn’t that bad. It really wasn’t. Other women had it so much worse, their bodies devastated, but she had needed no reconstruction. In truth, it was only a bit of scarring, just like she’d said to Alistair two nights ago. It had only been a lumpectomy, after all. She examined the shiny pink disturbance of flesh on her breast.

No, it wasn’t that bad.

But it was bad enough.

Of course, her body had changed over the years: she was far from the pert girl she had been twenty-five years ago. Age and childbearing had taken their toll, and the Tamoxifen she now had to take daily had caused her to gain a little weight, but she’d done her best to keep in shape.

Now this, this mark that she would carry for the rest of her days. Her body was no longer her own. It belonged to the cancer now. No wonder Alistair couldn’t bring himself to touch her, not if she could barely stand to look at herself.

Flanagan cursed and turned away from the mirror, feeling guilt for considering her husband so shallow, and for her own self-pity. Poor-me wallowing, and she’d be damned if she’d indulge in it.

She had slept badly the night before. Alistair had lain on the bed beside her, listening attentively, a serious expression on his face, while she recounted what had happened to Penny and Ronnie Walker. He passed no comment on her suspicion of Julie Walker’s account of events.

‘Well, argue with me,’ she had said, ‘tell me I’m wrong, whatever, just say something, for Christ’s sake.’

‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked. ‘Should I tell you you’re crazy? Or should I tell you you’ve nailed it?’

‘Just tell me what you think.’

‘I think you’ve got nothing solid to base this on,’ he said. ‘All you’ve really got is a feeling. Is that enough to accuse this woman of killing her parents?’

‘It’s not enough to arrest her, but surely it’s enough to take a second look, to ask some questions.’

‘Don’t you think this other DCI – Conn, wasn’t it? – don’t you think he’s capable of sorting through this case for himself?’

‘Of course I do,’ Flanagan said, hearing the hard edge of defensiveness in her own voice. ‘But he doesn’t know the victims like I do.’

Alistair turned on to his side, facing away from her, pulled the duvet up to his chin. ‘Get some sleep,’ he said. ‘Worrying about this isn’t going to do you or them any good.’

But she slept little, turning it over and over in her mind, trying to see every angle. Yes, the events appeared to have flowed in exactly the way Julie Walker described them. A suicide pact between a couple unable to face their own future. Ronnie Walker putting that pillow over his wife’s face, bearing his weight down on her even as her body fought to live. When Flanagan tried to picture such an act, she simply could not. Not dear shambling Ronnie who no more had the will to take a human life than he had the power to walk on water.

And Penny. She would not ask such a thing of her husband, even if she had no desire to let the disease take its agonising course.

But Julie Walker – could she do this? Could she take two lives, snuff out her parents as if they were lame horses? Was it to spare them the pain of separation? Or was it that she couldn’t face caring for her father in his dwindling years?

These questions kept Flanagan from sleep through much of the night, and now her mind felt weighted by them.

A little after ten o’clock, Flanagan sat at her desk, rereading the notes from the Milligan case, fighting the weight of her fatigue as her head nodded forward again and again. The ring of the telephone cut like a light through the fog inside her head, and she was glad of the disturbance as she reached for the handset.

‘I’ve got a Paula Cunningham from the Probation Board,’ the duty officer said. ‘Shall I put her through?’

‘Yes,’ Flanagan said, curious.

‘Sorry to disturb you again,’ Cunningham said. ‘I wondered if we could have another talk about Ciaran Devine.’

‘Go on.’

‘In person.’

Flanagan hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘All right. Where?’

A coffee shop on the Lisburn Road, on the southern edge of Belfast. Noon, they agreed, and ended the conversation.

Flanagan had given little thought to Ciaran Devine, or his brother, in the day or two since his release. He was grown now, had served his time, and had nothing to do with Flanagan any more. Now she remembered the boy, so young, so still and quiet on the other side of the interview room desk. She thought of the family he and his brother had destroyed, the devastation they’d left behind.