Those We Left Behind (20 page)

BALLANTINE WAITED ALONG
the corridor. Flanagan didn’t slow her pace on the way to the temporary office she’d been given.

‘Ma’am.’

Flanagan pretended she didn’t hear as she reached her door.

‘Ma’am.’

Louder. More insistent.

Flanagan exhaled and turned to the detective sergeant’s voice. ‘What?’

‘Can I have a word?’

Flanagan opened her office door, stood back to allow Ballantine to enter, then followed her in. ‘Well?’ she asked as she closed the door behind her.

Ballantine stood at the desk, her arms folded, her fingers curling around her elbows, her gaze on the floor.

‘Come on,’ Flanagan said. ‘We haven’t got all night.’

‘I saw the way you touched him,’ Ballantine said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The way you were stroking his neck.’

‘Stroking?’ Flanagan forced an indignant laugh. ‘I wasn’t stroking anything. I put my hand on his shoulder while I was speaking with him. A friendly gesture to relax him. To get him to talk to me.’

Ballantine shook her head, but kept her eyes downward. ‘You were touching his neck. In an intimate way, with your fingertips.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘It’s inappropriate,’ Ballantine said. ‘He’s a very vulnerable young man, and you’re playing games with him.’

‘Enough,’ Flanagan said, the edge of her voice sharpening.

‘You can’t exploit his feelings for you like—’

‘I said, enough!’

Ballantine fell silent. She hadn’t looked at Flanagan once.

‘Now, I want you to continue questioning Thomas Devine. You know the areas I want covered, you know which approaches to take. We probably won’t have him or his brother here for long, so there’s no time for this nonsense. Understood?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘All right,’ Flanagan said. ‘Go and do your job.’

Ballantine left without another word. Flanagan watched the door for a time before she said, ‘Fuck.’

Anger burst in her, a childish rage. She walked a circle around the room, her fists clenched, wishing she had something or someone to punch. Instead she kicked the chair in front of her desk, barely budging it. Then she pushed it over, kicked it again.

‘Fuck,’ she said once more.

Stop it, she commanded herself. Grow up. She opened her hands, felt the heat where her nails had dug into the palms, brought them together as if to offer up a prayer.

When calm had returned, or as near as she was likely to get, Flanagan breathed deep and thought about how she would use the remaining hours with Ciaran Devine. She looked at her watch and cursed again before lifting her mobile.

As she listened to the dial tone, a sense of déjà vu swamped her. Seven years ago, she made the same call for the same reason, like her life had turned in one long, wide circle.

When Alistair answered, she said, ‘I’ll be late home.’

‘So much for easing back in,’ he said, his voice sounding kind but exasperated.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just this case. I’ve only so long to interview the DP before I have to let him go.’

‘I understand,’ Alistair said. ‘What time do you reckon?’

‘I don’t know. Late. Maybe all night.’

Silence for a few seconds, then, ‘The kids were asking for you.’

Flanagan covered her eyes with her free hand. ‘Are they all right? How was school?’

‘Do you really want to know?’ he asked. ‘Or are you just asking to be polite?’

‘Don’t,’ she said.

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t use them against me like that. It’s not fair.’

‘Not fair? Are you . . .’

Alistair exhaled as he cut the sentence short before he said something hurtful. She silently thanked him for it.

‘Sneak in and give them a kiss for me,’ she said.

‘You could always come home and do it yourself,’ he said.

‘I’d like to,’ she said. ‘But I can’t.’

‘Yeah. Sure, we’ll see you when we see you.’

‘Okay. I love you.’

‘Yeah,’ he said, and the line died.

CIARAN DREAMS.

Hundreds of faces flash through his wandering mind. He knows few of them.

Thomas is calling from far away. Ciaran can’t see him.

He is alone in a darkened corridor. Thomas’s voice reverberates between the dull painted walls and scuffed vinyl tiles on the floor.

Where is this place? A hospital? A prison? A school? Whatever it is, Ciaran doesn’t like it. It smells of toilets and disinfectant. He can feel how empty it is. This place should be full of people, bustling, working, talking. Instead it is quiet.

Apart from Thomas’s voice, rising and falling.

Ciaran walks, realises he is barefoot, feels the tiles kiss his soles. He follows the voice around one corner, then another, and another.

It’s darker here, deeper inside the building. Colder, the air heavier.

Up ahead, he sees a door with a window. Mesh in the glass like at the Young Offenders Centre. Light glowing sickly pale from within. The voice seeps between the door and its frame, carried by the light.

There are other doors along this corridor but Ciaran knows there are terrible things behind them. Bloody and painful things.

Ciaran draws closer. He sees a shape in the window: Thomas, watching him approach, his mouth moving.

Ciaran reaches the door. He touches the glass. He can no longer hear Thomas’s voice, but his brother’s lips move regardless. The glass steams up from his breath. Ciaran sees the teeth behind the lips, glistening yellow-white.

Inside the room, beyond Thomas, is a bed. A hospital bed, a woman upon it.

Ciaran knows her, even though he hasn’t seen her in many years. Except for dreams like this. His mother watching him, a smile on her lips.

Thomas is gone. Only a door between Ciaran and his mother. All he has to do is reach for the handle and turn it. Walk through to her.

That’s all.

The handle is slippery on his skin. He can’t grip it. It’s too difficult. He tries and tries as his mother’s eyes plead for him to come to her. Finally, he gets hold of the metal, presses down, and the door is gone and he is inside with her.

She lifts her arms to him, hands and fingers outstretched, come to Mummy.

He crosses the space between them without taking a step and is swallowed in her embrace. There on the bed, he melts into her, their arms and legs entangled and he is a child again, an infant, and she is the only woman in the whole wide world.

Her lips and breath on his infant ear: You don’t need him.

I do, he says.

You don’t.

I do, he’s the big boy, I’m the baby, he has to look after me.

You don’t need him. I won’t let him hurt you again.

Ciaran opens his eyes to look at his mother. She has eyes just like Serena Flanagan’s. And the same mouth and skin. And the smell like clean air and summer.

You don’t need him, she says.

Then she is gone in a hard and burning light and Ciaran is falling, landing, jerking awake on the cell floor. He rolls onto his side, his arms cover his face, ready for his brother’s teeth.

‘Ciaran,’ she says.

Serena Flanagan’s voice.

He lowers his arms, finds her through the punishing brightness of the cell’s fluorescent lighting.

‘Are you ready to talk some more?’ she asks.

As the confusion drifts away, Ciaran sits up on the mattress. His mouth is dry. He watches her, remembering the feel of her dream-embrace. He swallows.

‘Ciaran?’

Ciaran says, ‘I don’t need him.’

‘THAT’S RIGHT,’ FLANAGAN
said.

He stared up at her from the floor, his eyes wide.

Just a child, Flanagan thought.

No, a grown man. Remember that, she thought. Whatever happens, remember that.

‘Can I sit down?’

Flanagan waited for an answer. When none came, she went to the bench and sat down. The tiled concrete cold on her thighs, the mattress still on the floor with the others. Ciaran wrapped his arms around his knees.

‘Tell me about before,’ she said.

‘Before what?’

‘Before things went bad. When you and Thomas lived with your mother, before you were taken into care. Before your father died.’

‘I don’t remember him,’ Ciaran said. ‘Not really.’

‘Nothing at all?’

Ciaran thought for a moment, his eyes distant, then said, ‘He had hard fingers. I remember him holding my hand. His skin was dry and scratchy. And he smelled of cigarettes.’

‘Do you remember when he died?’ Flanagan asked.

‘I remember the funeral,’ Ciaran said. ‘All the crying.’

‘And after that?’

‘We went to live in the house by the sea. Near Newcastle. It belonged to Mum’s parents. She got it when they died. It was good at first. Then Mum started to get sick.’

‘Then tell me about the good part.’

Ciaran rested his chin on his knees, stared at something far away.

‘She used to take us to this little beach, near the house. We used to look for crabs in the rock pools. Play hide-and-seek in the dunes. I used to laugh while we ran. I remember laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. Thomas used to laugh then too. He doesn’t laugh any more.’

Flanagan hesitated for a moment, then lowered herself to the floor beside Ciaran, leaned her back against the bench. ‘Have you ever gone back there?’ she asked.

Ciaran shook his head. ‘Thomas sold the house when he got out.’

‘Did he share the money with you?’

‘No,’ Ciaran said.

‘Doesn’t that bother you?’

‘No. I don’t need any money.’

‘Do you miss that house?’

‘Sometimes.’ He moved to a cross-legged position. ‘The good times, anyway. Not after. Not when it got bad.’

Flanagan became aware of his knee touching her thigh, the small overlap of their bodies.

‘Would you like to go back?’

‘I wanted to, but Thomas said no. He told me it’s empty, waiting to be knocked down. You can’t get in.’

Flanagan watched him as she said, ‘Maybe I could take you.’

He seemed shocked by the idea. ‘You?’

She swallowed, a dry click in her throat. ‘Yes. Why not?’

‘Thomas wouldn’t want me to.’ He dropped his gaze.

‘So? You told me you don’t need him, remember?’

‘But . . .’ His mouth opened and closed as he searched for an answer.

‘We could go,’ Flanagan said, leaning in closer to him. So close she could feel his warmth. ‘Just you and me. All you have to do is tell the truth about what happened to Daniel Rolston, and to his father. Tell me what Thomas did, and I promise you and I will go to the seaside, where you used to live. Just talk to me.’

A sudden tremor through Ciaran’s shoulders. ‘But Thomas won’t let me.’

‘Thomas has no say in it.’ Flanagan put a hand on his forearm. ‘You don’t need him.’

Tears rolled now, crystal beads racing on his cheeks. ‘But he won’t let me, he won’t, he’ll be angry, and he’ll bite me.’

‘Bite you?’

‘He’ll bite me if I’m bad,’ Ciaran said, the words choked between sobs. ‘He always bites me when I’m bad.’

Flanagan remembered the marks on Ciaran’s forearm, now covered by his sleeves. She lifted her hand away, looked at his wrist, the bruising that crept beneath his cuff.

She knew what she wanted to do. That same impulse as long ago. But it was too dangerous. She looked up at the camera. Imagined Ballantine watching, judging.

‘Oh Jesus,’ she said. ‘C’mere.’

In spite of everything, she took him in her arms. Like so many years before. His body, at first unyielding, softened against hers. She felt the spasms of his torso as he wept, his cheek pressed into her neck. Like before. A child then, a young man now.

‘Thomas won’t let me go,’ he said.

Every nerve in her body seemed to fire in volleys, fear tangling with emotions strange to her. The truth, she told herself. I will get the truth and I will have done the right thing.

For the truth, that’s all.

‘He will,’ Flanagan said. ‘I promise. I’ll make sure he never touches you again.’

‘You can’t stop him.’

‘Yes I can.’

‘How?’

‘I’ll put him away,’ she said, her lips finding his ear. ‘I’ll put him where he can never hurt you again. I promise you. But you have to trust me. Do you trust me?’

He nodded, his face burrowing deeper into the hollow between her shoulder and her chin. She felt his mouth move, the heat of his breath, as he whispered, ‘Yes.’

For the truth. That thought echoed in her mind. Only the truth and nothing else.

Flanagan rocked him in her arms. ‘Then tell me the truth. Tell me what happened in that bedroom with Daniel’s father. Tell me who killed him.’

‘I can’t,’ Ciaran said, his voice soft and thin like a child’s.

‘You can,’ she said. ‘If you trust me, then tell me. Then we can go to the seaside together. I promise, I swear on my life, I will take you there. Just tell me what happened.’

He became still and quiet. Through his skin, Flanagan felt something shift inside him, some change in his soul.

She eased back from him, her hands on his upper arms, her eyes locked on his. ‘Ciaran, tell me.’

He took one deep breath. ‘It was—’

‘Flanagan.’

Her head snapped up, her gaze to the cell door. DSI Purdy, unshaven, a suit with no tie. Horror on his face. Ciaran inched away from her.

‘Not now,’ Flanagan said.

‘Now.’

‘Please,’ Flanagan said, ‘I’ll come to your—’

Purdy’s face contorted in rage. ‘Right fucking now!’

His bellowing voice resonated and boomed in the cell.

Ciaran backed away, pushing with his hands and his feet, curled into a ball in the corner.

Flanagan stood, smoothed her clothing, went towards the door. She looked back over her shoulder, saw Ciaran staring back at her over his knees.

‘I promise,’ she said.

‘What exactly are you playing at?’ Purdy asked.

He had led Flanagan to her makeshift office and barked at her to sit, but he remained pacing on the other side of the desk. The clock on the wall read 1:34 a.m.

‘Trying to get Ciaran’s trust,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to stop me talking to him off the record, getting him to open up. Then I can use that when he’s under caution.’

‘Getting his trust. I see. So for him to trust you, you have to feel him up.’

‘What?’

‘You want to know what happened about an hour ago?’

Flanagan didn’t answer.

‘I’m just nodding off in bed, nice and snug, then my phone rings. Detective Sergeant Ballantine, awful sorry to disturb me at this time of night, wants a quick word.’

Flanagan’s mouth dried. Dizziness and nausea followed. She gripped the arms of the chair.

‘She’s got a situation and she doesn’t know what to do about it. Of course, I tell her to talk to you about it, but no, she can’t do that because Detective Chief Inspector Flanagan is the fucking problem.’

‘Sir, I don’t know what DS Ballantine has told you, but—’

‘Oh, she told me plenty. She told me she’d seen you touch a detained person in an inappropriate manner. She said you were going back in to talk to him some more, and she was worried about what was going to happen.’

‘Please, sir, if you’ll let me—’

‘Of course I told her, don’t be daft, Flanagan’s a pro, she’s as good as they come, she wouldn’t do anything stupid like that. All the same, I got out of bed, drove up here, and had a look at the CCTV feed from that boy’s cell.’

He leaned over the desk. Flanagan looked at the floor.

‘And there’s you and young Ciaran Devine getting all cosy on the floor.’

‘Sir, I don’t know what it looked like, but I can assure you nothing inappropriate happened. He was distressed, and I was comforting him. That’s all.’

‘Oh, he looked comfortable, all right.’

‘He was getting ready to talk. If you hadn’t interrupted, he would have told me the truth about what happened to Daniel Rolston’s father.’

Purdy gave a dry crackling laugh. ‘Oh yes, I know what you said to him earlier today, in front of the solicitor, on record.’

‘It was a valid question.’

‘Valid? You put it to him that he didn’t kill his foster carer, that his confession was bullshit, that he was wrongly convicted. I listened to the interview. I heard you say it.’

‘It’s a line of inquiry that—’

Purdy’s voice rose as his jowls quivered. ‘It’s a fucking lie that’s going to land me in the shit.’

Flanagan blinked, shook her head in confusion. ‘Sir?’

He stabbed at his chest with a finger. ‘That was my case. Mine. And you’re trying to make out I fitted up the wrong boy for it.’

‘Sir, he confessed, there was no reason for you to—’

‘If that conviction gets overturned, the blame goes on me.’

‘I worked that case too,’ Flanagan said. ‘It was me who took the confession. I’m as much to blame as you are.’

‘And I’m the one who’ll take the grief for it. I’ll be destroyed. You think I’m going to let you take a wrecking ball to my career?’

Flanagan forced calm into her voice. ‘If Ciaran Devine didn’t kill that man, then the truth has to come out.’

Purdy threw his arms wide. ‘Why? Who’s it going to help? They were both there in the room. They both went away for the murder. You get that boy to change his story, what difference is it going to make?’

‘Maybe none, but what are we here for if not to get the truth? It won’t get Ciaran back those seven years, but I’ll have done my job.’

‘Are you saying I haven’t?’

‘No, I—’

‘Shut up and listen to me.’

‘I—’

He leaned over the desk once more, his voice shaking now. ‘I said shut up.’

Flanagan locked her hands together in her lap, clenched her jaw.

‘Now, I’m taking this case away from you.’

Flanagan opened her mouth, but Purdy raised his hand to silence her.

‘Don’t breathe another fucking word, or so help me God, I’ll have you in front of a misconduct panel. Clear?’

Flanagan nodded.

‘Good. Now, you were supposed to be investigating a murder that took place at the weekend, not one that happened seven years ago. Given the lack of anything solid that ties those boys to the murder itself, I’m going to let them go before the morning. You will hand over all material you have relating to this case and provide any support requested to whomever the ACC and I appoint in your place. You will not make any further reference, to anybody, to their previous conviction other than the facts established by Ciaran Devine’s confession and the evidence that was presented at trial. Do you understand me?’

‘But—’

‘Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Okay. Now get the fuck out of my sight.’

Flanagan marched along the corridor from her office, rage bound up like a fireball in her chest. She wanted to scream, to curse, but kept her mouth tight closed as she exited the building, even as the pressure of it built inside her. Furious tears and tremors escaped as she unlocked her car. Inside, she slammed the door, and screamed her throat raw.