Thrown Down (10 page)

Patricia felt really wounded by that one. It was as cruel a remark as the man you’ve loved for nearly forty years could possibly make.

‘I was young, I was impressionable, I was … ‘

‘ … oh roll out the bloody clichés why don’t you’.

‘But it’s true Dennis’ she pleaded. ‘I was barely into my twenties and I’d only just started drinking. I was living in a society that blamed me for everything that was wrong just because I was a Catholic. I could’ve run away to Australia years before I did but I wanted to stay and fight. Everything was great with Fergal and we were having a great time but I fell in love with James Carson the first time I saw him and once again Dennis I was young. With everything else going on around me I wanted to have some fun and some laughs’.

‘It wasn’t just about sex then’ Dennis snarled.

‘How dare you say that!’

‘Well presumably you were sleeping with them both at the same time? Wasn’t Fergal up to much in the bedroom department? Did James know what he was doing better than Fergal did?’

Patricia went to slap her husband’s face but Dennis grabbed her wrist and held it tightly. ‘I won’t be responsible for my actions if you strike me’ he hissed.

‘Well you’re such a bloody hypocrite! How many women had you slept with before I came along?’

‘Yes well the difference is that I wasn’t involved in the murder of innocent people in my spare time’ said Dennis before letting go of her wrist. ‘And why did you turn on your own comrades? Why did you turn traitor?’

‘I was in love’.

Dennis looked up to the heavens and snorted. ‘How could anything like love exist in all the shit you were standing in?’

‘I was in love with James and I wanted to please him in whichever way I could’ said Patricia. ‘I passed everything I got from what I knew myself and from what Fergal and Padraig told me on to him. Then it got complicated. They thought that Fergal was the traitor. That’s when they shot him’.

‘So you not only cheated on your boyfriend with another man but you then betrayed him in the same fatal way that you betrayed your friend Deirdre. You let them both be killed for things they hadn’t done when it was you who was betraying the IRA during pillow talk with your RUC lover’.

‘That’s about it, yes’.

‘You were a bloody coward!’

‘Dennis, I was a different woman back then, I was still a girl, I was trying to make my way through a very uncertain world and then when I met you I turned into the kind of woman I’d always been meant to be. Can’t you see that?’

‘Oh don’t try and plead any case with me, Patty’ said Dennis. ‘You have the deaths of at least two people on your hands not to mention all the others you were involved with. What happened to your affair with Carson after Fergal was shot?’

‘The IRA did finally catch up with me’ said Patricia, recalling the night they interrogated her about it and how terrified she’d been. ‘They got me to make a deal. They said they’d say no more about it if I agreed to kill James’.

‘That must’ve been a piece of cake after everything else you’d done’.

‘You bastard’.

‘You’ve got the nerve to call me that after everything you’ve told me? So did you kill this James?’

‘I was going to’ Patricia admitted, tearfully. ‘But I couldn’t. I loved him. I had a gun. I pointed it at him. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. We were in this flat that James used to meet me. It must’ve belonged to the security services. Anyway, I didn’t know but my brother Padraig was hiding in there. When I couldn’t carry out the execution Padraig picked up James’s gun that was sitting on the bedside table and shot him dead with it. I cried. I panicked. I didn’t know what the Hell to do’.

‘So then what happened?’

‘The police arrested Padraig’ said Patricia. ‘They’d been wanting to get him and to get me. But they told me that if I told them everything else I knew they would get me away to Australia and well away from the IRA execution squad that would’ve picked me up if I’d stayed. I went to see Padraig in gaol where he was waiting to go on trial. I said I couldn’t leave him to spend the rest of his life in prison for something I should’ve done. He said that didn’t matter. He said I should head as far away as I could get so that at least one of us could have a life and a future’.

‘And never looked back on the mess you’d left behind’.

‘Well if you think that then you really don’t know me at all’.

‘Oh you’re so right, Patricia. I really don’t know you. In fact, right now you disgust me so much that I can barely look at you’.                    

THROWN DOWN SEVEN

DI Ollie Wright pulled up outside Kieran Murphy’s terraced house with bay windows in Trafford Park and looked around as he took the keys out of the ignition.

‘This must be the perfect place for families to bring up kids’ Ollie remarked after he got out of the car. ‘I mean, with an infants school on one corner, a supermarket on the other and a park just a block away. Do we still call them infants schools by the way? Or have they been renamed something else?’

DSI Jeff Barton smiled as he stood up straight and smoothed down his jacket. ‘No it’s still called infants school, at least it is where my Toby goes. He goes up to big school in September though and he’s very excited’.

‘Does he enjoy school?’

‘He loves it’ said Jeff, proudly. ‘He seems to love learning thank God. His grandfather is teaching him Mandarin and you ought to hear the two of them chatting away together’.

‘Sounds like it makes you feel very proud’.

‘Oh it does, it really does. Do you and your partner plan to have any kids?’

‘No’ said Ollie.

‘Do you want to think about it for a minute?’

Ollie laughed. ‘No, well we have discussed it but we’re both quite selfish and I’ve seen enough examples of rubbish parents in this job to know that Martin and I wouldn’t be much good either. We’re both from big families too and we have our nephews and nieces to stay and all that but we’re always happy to hand them back at the end. You seem to encourage your son’s pursuit of his place in your late wife’s culture, sir?’

‘Yes and it was a very conscious decision, Ollie’ Jeff confirmed. ‘It’s half of who he is and it would be a kind of betrayal to Lillie Mae if he let go of it. Besides, I don’t want him to lose touch with her family, especially her parents. It wouldn’t be fair on them or on him and we all benefit from that because we all get to hold onto Lillie Mae by seeing Toby grow up embracing his Chinese heritage. And the way China is developing it will serve him well to be fluent in both languages’.

Ollie had so much respect for his boss. Jeff Barton just didn’t seem to have any of the discriminatory baggage that so many senior police officers seem to have. Ollie had never played up the fact that he was black and he’d certainly never expected any special treatment. But he knew what some people thought of him being in a senior position just because he was black. And gay. But you can’t legislate about what people think.

Jeff and Ollie walked up to the front door and rang the bell of number 12. They watched as the camera that was fixed to a corner of the doorway above them turned to take a view. They held up their police warrant cards to it so that whoever was watching inside got a clear view.

‘Getting justice for people must be a dangerous game’ Ollie remarked.

‘Sectarian grudges go deep and last long’ said Jeff. ‘And it seems have no geographical restriction. People can take them from Belfast to Manchester to anywhere’.

‘That’s right we can officer’ said Kieran Murphy after he’d opened the door. ‘That’s why we have to be careful who we answer the door to and why we have a microphone as well as a camera fitted into the ceiling there’.

‘You don’t take any chances’ said Jeff.

‘I can’t afford to especially with … well you know, recent events surrounding the death of my brother. I presume that’s why you’re here? Please come in’.

Kieran led them down the hall of his house and introduced them to his wife Maggie who was standing in the kitchen where she promised that she’d bring them through some tea. At the back of the house on ground level was a small room that had been converted into an office. The desk looked like it had once been in a flat pack and was covered with sheets of paper with writing on them, scribbled notes, reference books, and a desktop computer. There was a tall but narrow window that let in just enough light and afforded a view of the small back garden and the backs of the houses in the next street. Jeff glanced up at the clouds that were moving quite fast across the sky. There was probably going to be rain later.

‘First of all, Mr. Murphy, I’d like to say that I’m very sorry for your loss of your brother’ said Jeff after Kieran had cleared more paperwork off two chairs so that they could sit down. He had a large high backed chair at his desk. ‘It must’ve come as quite a shock’.    

Jeff watched Kieran’s face but couldn’t quite work out what he could see written all over it. Kieran’s wife Maggie came in and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.

‘My husband deals with loss all the time, officer’ Maggie explained. ‘He talks to and tries to help families just like his own who’ve lost a loved one, a mother, a father, brother, or sister in such terrible circumstances’.

‘Yes and I imagine it must be very difficult work at times’ said Jeff who knew all about the campaigning organisation that was run by Kieran Murphy and how it would make him enemies. He admired the way Kieran Murphy ran such an organization from this small space at the back of his house but he didn’t want to go too far down the road of admiration. Kieran Murphy may turn out to be a suspect.

‘But when it’s your own brother who’s been murdered, officer’ said Kieran, shaking his head gently. His wife Maggie’s head turned when she heard the click of the kettle having boiled. She followed it saying she’d be back in a moment.  ‘It’s taken me back to that day when our mother was dragged away from us and we never saw her again. But you see, the IRA know where all the disappeared were buried after they were tortured, charged and then executed without a trial. We campaign to get that truth out of them. But in the case of our Barry … somebody walked into his office and shot him dead in cold blood. That’s something quite different. I want to know why, officer. I want to know who he’d poured that glass of whiskey for’.

Now that’s very interesting, thought Jeff. How did Kieran know about the whiskey his brother Barry had poured out shortly before he was shot dead? That detail had been left out of the public and press release. All that had been publicly revealed was that it looked very much like Barry Murphy had been expecting his visitor that night. Jeff glanced at Ollie briefly but it was enough to let Ollie know not to pick up on it just yet. It would keep until a more appropriate time during this interview or a subsequent one. Kieran appeared to be the grieving younger brother but was it just an act?  Would it turn out that Barry Murphy’s wife Tabitha wasn’t the only one of his close relatives who wasn’t genuinely grieving for him?  

‘Where were you last night, Kieran?’ Jeff asked.

‘Well I was here’ Kieran replied as if he should never have been asked. ‘My wife can testify to that and you can have the film from the outdoor camera. You don’t suspect me of doing it?’

‘We can’t rule anything or anyone out at this stage, Mr. Murphy’ said Jeff, calmly. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate that’.

‘I can appreciate a lot of things’ said Kieran. ‘I can appreciate that they happened without having to like them. Like the war that was going on that led to one of our loved ones disappearing. Like the IRA who’ve been fighting us all the way but when they thought it might be politically expedient to help us they started to do so. I appreciate all of that, officer. But ask me to appreciate the fact that you might think I murdered my own brother after what happened to our family years ago is something I really can’t appreciate’.

‘I can understand your strength of feeling, Mr. Murphy’ said Jeff.

‘I hope so’ Kieran spat back.

‘Do you know a man called Chris O’Neill, Mr. Murphy?’ Ollie asked.

‘Chris O’Neill?’ Kieran questioned. ‘No. Should I?’

‘Have you ever drunk in the Farmers Arms pub in Chorlton?’ Ollie went on.

‘I can’t recall ever having done so, no’ said Kieran impatiently. ‘Look, why all these damn questions?’

Maggie Murphy came in with the tea and immediately waded in to defend her husband. ‘My husband has done no wrong, officer’ said Maggie, forcefully before handing round the mugs of tea and squatting down on the floor next to her husband. ‘He’s devoted his life to helping others find the answers they need. You should be ashamed of yourself for going at him like this’.

Jeff noted that Maggie wasn’t from Northern Ireland like her husband. She was English and her accent was clearly northwest. Kieran’s accent was pure Belfast still.

‘I’m just asking, Mrs. Murphy’ said Ollie. ‘As part of our enquiries into what is a murder investigation’.

‘You went over to Northern Ireland three days ago, Mr. Murphy?’ said Jeff.

‘You know I did’ said Kieran, wearily.