Thrown Down (17 page)

‘Sounds like you think he’ll try and contact her sooner rather than later’ Freeman opined.

‘I’d put money on it, Howard’ said Jeff. ‘And I think that’s where the focus of special branch should be. You should be helping us find the man posing as Chris O’Neill because I believe that he’s the clear and present danger here, not some suspected dissident groups who may be drawn out of the woodwork by a woman who’s been living on the other side of the world for the best part of forty years’.

DSI Jeff Barton was pushing is team to find out who the man posing as Chris O’Neill really was. Special branch claimed not to know but he didn’t know if he really did believe that. Not all the relevant facts are known at the outset of an investigation. That’s a given because of the nature of what an investigation is. But on the other hand it did seem rather incredulous to Jeff that some stranger who isn’t known to the police or the security services should just pop up and murder potentially two members of the local Irish community in cold blood. The trail of that had to have started somewhere.

‘Why am I here exactly?’ demanded Kieran Murphy as he sat across the desk in the interview room from Jeff and DI Ollie Wright. A young solicitor who also looked like she was descended from Irish stock with her curly red hair and bright green eyes on a freckled covered face sat beside Murphy. Her name was Helena O’Riley which did kind of give the game away about her heritage. Jeff hadn’t seen her before though. She must be newly qualified and eager to help her ‘community’.

‘We need you to answer some questions for us, Kieran’ said Wright. ‘There’s nothing for you to be frightened of if you genuinely don’t know the answers to them’.

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Really Kieran, hold your fire’ said Wright. ‘We haven’t even started yet’.

‘Oh I know what you’re doing’ Kieran asserted. ‘I know what you’re up to’.

‘And what’s that, Kieran?’

‘You coppers over here are cut from the same cloth as those back home’ snarled Kieran, pointing his finger at Wright. ‘You can’t bear any of us on the nationalist side of things to get any justice or any closure for the things that were done against us. So you’ll pick at a man like me who’s worked his bollocks off to get that justice and get that closure and you’ll keep on picking until you find something to charge me with real or not’.

‘I can assure you that’s not what we’re doing here, Kieran’ said Wright. ‘If that’s your comfort zone when dealing with the police isn’t it rather old hat now? I mean, your group has received the utmost help and assistance from the PSNI and from forces right across the mainland to help you find the disappeared IRA members, including your own mother which is why you made that visit back to Northern Ireland last week. So let’s not start looking gift horses in the mouth if you don’t mind’.

Kieran laughed sardonically. ‘Oh you’re good. You’re bloody good. The top brass must bloody love you and you’re black which means they get to fill their targets for recruits from ethnic minorities with quality such as you. You’ll be the first black chief constable of Greater Manchester if you don’t screw up along the way, son’.

Ollie just ignored all that crap although he wouldn’t mind being Chief Constable one day. ‘When was the last time you saw your brother Barry, Kieran?’

‘I told you before it was twenty years ago when the family found out he’d taken the IRA’s blood money’

‘And when did you last have any contact with him?’

‘I don’t understand? I’ve answered that already’

‘When did you last speak to him on the phone for instance?’

‘I told you it was twenty years ago! I can’t remember the damn date!’

‘You’re lying’.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’re lying to us, Kieran’.

‘What do you mean by accusing me of something like that?’

‘We have your mobile phone records’ Wright went on. ‘They show you made several calls to Barry’s phone in the last couple of weeks, one of which lasted twenty-one minutes. Care to explain?’

The look on Kieran Murphy’s face said it all to Wright and DSI Barton. He was struggling with the weight of the words. Both Wright and Barton could see that so clearly. He was torn. But between what exactly?

‘Why did you make those calls, Kieran?’ Ollie pursued.

‘Who said I did?’

‘They were from your phone?’

‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that I made them?’

‘Oh so who you are you going to blame it on? Your wife? One of your kids? Are you going to be that desperate to absolve yourself of all responsibility?’

‘You’ve got a fucking nerve’.

‘Have I? I’d have thought it was you who had the nerve to lie to the police about your brother who ended up shot dead in cold blood!’

Kieran pushed his chair back and slumped his head forward into his hands. How had everything come to this? His solicitor Helen O’Riley placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered instructions to her client but he didn’t seem eager to accept them.

‘Are you at last willing to tell us the truth now, Kieran?’ Wright asked. ‘There could be a lot riding on it’.

‘For who?’

‘For the truth of who murdered your brother! I’d have thought you’d have wanted to know that’.

Kieran ran his hands through his hair and brought them to rest at the back of his neck. He rocked forwards and backwards and then he straightened himself up and spoke.

‘I needed money’ said Kieran. He wiped his mouth with the cuff of his shirt as if just speaking the words he’d just used would render him dirty.

‘Say that again?’ said Wright.

‘I needed money. Look, I’ve had to re-mortgage the house twice in the last few years and I’ve had to almost give up working full-time. My wife works but what she brings in barely covers our expenses. We’ve been in debt for bloody years now. It’s so bloody unfair that when you try and help people you only end up in deep strife yourself. Don’t try and convince me there’s a God up there because, quite frankly, I think He’s a sick, bloody joke’.

‘So did you turn to your brother Barry for money, Kieran?’

Kieran started to cry. ‘Yes, I did. I was desperate! I couldn’t think of anyone to turn to except our Barry because nobody else in our family has got any money. They all just survive from month to month. But I’ve been shelling out all I’ve got on this campaign and I’m one mortgage repayment away from losing the house’.

‘Why did you lie to us before, Kieran?’

Kieran stopped crying but still struggled to regain his composure. ‘Because I was so fucking ashamed! Don’t you see that? Or are you so intent on hanging me out to dry?’

‘That’s some persecution complex you’ve got there, Kieran’.

‘Really? You think so? Well you try standing in my shoes with the memory of your mother being dragged screaming from the table when we were all having our tea and you tell me how to avoid a persecution complex, officer. You just come back and tell me to rise above it all and let it all go like all the other shite I get told by people who’ve never had anything go wrong in their life except for a fucking Christmas card go missing’.

‘Kieran, do you know Patricia O’Connell?’ Jeff intervened.

‘Of course I do. She was the one who made out to the IRA that my mother was a traitor when in fact it was Patricia who was the traitor’.

‘So what would you do if you saw her?’

‘If she was crossing the street in front of me I’d put my foot down all the way on the accelerator and make straight for her’.

‘Thank you’ said Jeff. ‘That’s just what I thought’.

‘Why? Has she surfaced? Do you know where she is?’

Jeff’s questions and Kieran’s questions were enough to prove to Jeff, and to Wright, that he didn’t know about any contact between Barry and Patricia recently.

‘Kieran, how did you know about the whiskey on the night of your brother Barry’s murder?’

‘Because he rang and told me that it was ready and waiting for me’ Kieran blurted out and then started to cry again. ‘Yes, I was due to be there that night. Barry had agreed to loan me the money I needed to get myself out of trouble’.

‘But somebody got there first’ said Jeff, quietly.

Kieran’s tears were streaming down his cheeks now. ‘I saw them’.

‘You saw who, Kieran?’

‘I’d just pulled up in the street where Barry’s showroom is’ Kieran explained, wiping his face once again with his cuff and his sleeve. He’d been waiting to relieve himself of what he’d seen that night but he’d been caught between a desire to tell the truth and a reluctance to involve himself in whatever his brother Barry was involved with. But it had gone way beyond that now. The police were looking for a killer or killers and he could see that they weren’t going to be satisfied with anything less than everything he knew.

‘And what did you see, Kieran?’ Jeff asked.

‘I saw that guy you’re after’ Kieran confessed. ‘I saw him, that Chris O’Neill. I saw him running from Barry’s showroom and into a car that then sped away’.

‘Did you see who was driving the car, Kieran?’

‘Yes’

Jeff was excited. It was that moment in an investigation when you know as a police officer that something mightily important was about to become clear.

‘And who was it, Kieran?’

‘It was a woman’.

‘Can you narrow that down a little?’

‘She’s been on the TV news lately in relation to Barry’s death’ said Kieran. ‘Though not because she was his wife’.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The woman who was driving the car was his wife’s sister. It was Jade’.           

THROWN DOWN TWELVE

Guy Matheson had always tried to love both Jade and Tabitha equally but it hadn’t been easy when his wife Juliet had never let him have much of a say when it came to raising the girls or how the house was run. His job had been to bring in the money for Juliet to spend and in that respect he’d been a thoroughly good husband. He’d successfully built up his sports equipment mail order business to the point where they hadn’t had to think about money for several years now and he was thinking of accepting one of the many offers from one of the bigger boys in the game to buy him out. It would make him millions and he’d be able to wipe the slate clean with Juliet too. The business had been sound for a long time and it had meant that both Jade and Tabitha had grown up with an enviable lifestyle. Jade had always appreciated it. Tabitha never had. But there were other reasons for that distinction.

Looking back Guy had always thought of himself as a fool for not having taken any notice of the signs. Jade was a two year-old toddler running round the place like the mad things that two year-old toddlers tend to be and they were both proud parents. Then something started to change. Juliet started out late with her friends. She went off on shopping trips and came back with precious little to show for it which was highly unusual for her. He’d caught her out having lied to him about where she’d been. He hadn’t confronted her about it. He hadn’t questioned it when she’d refused to have sex with him. They were still young back then. They were busy with the business and the house but that shouldn’t have lessened any desire of the carnal kind. Then she announced to everyone except Guy that she was pregnant. And still he didn’t question it. She’d told all their friends before telling him as if it was all part of some plan she had to present Guy with a situation he couldn’t turn away from. And still he didn’t question it. All he did was settle in his mind with the conclusion that whoever she’d had the affair with had not been able to do the right thing by her and she’d made a choice to stay with Guy and bring up the child as a full sibling to Jade. For all her guile at having had an affair with another man his wife Juliet clearly lacked the guts to walk away from Guy and start a new life because it meant she would be on her own and her bread was buttered better if she stayed at home. She must’ve thought of how it would all look to their social circle if she’d left Guy. All the sympathy would have gone to him and she really wouldn’t have liked that.  She’d always been very good at starting a row and then twisting it round until Guy himself believed that it was all his fault and that he was the one to have to do all the apologising. She cultivated an image to the world of an innocent and a thoroughly decent person. She wouldn’t have wanted people to know the truth that only Guy knew and that was that she actually was a manipulative liar and a thoroughly nasty little bitch who could have an affair with another man and treat her husband with complete contempt. She stayed with Guy and that’s when their years of thinly veiled animosity towards each other began.

And when Tabitha arrived on the scene Juliet seemed to make it abundantly clear that she was her favoured one. She grew to be a spoilt and rather irritating brat who Guy couldn’t stand. He knew that Jade was hurt by how the ‘family’ worked. He knew that she felt intense pain at the way Juliet made her feel so worthless and compared her so unfairly to Tabitha and Guy felt a great sense of shame that he hadn’t stood up for Jade more often than he did. He left it all to Juliet and she was spiteful towards her eldest daughter. Guy understood it all now. Jade was the daughter by the man she didn’t love but had needed to settle for and Tabitha was the daughter by the man who she really had loved and kept the affair going with him by placing Tabitha on a pedestal. It wasn’t poor Jade’s fault. Guy knew he’d really let his daughter down. He’d tried to make up for it by buying her the hairdressing salon in Wilmslow that she was making a great success of but he knew that the scars his daughter felt would never be healed with something as worthless as money.