Dark Dawn (11 page)

In the car park he threw away his cigarette and went back inside. Up in CID, Larkin joked, ‘Ah, DS O’Neill. How’s our great murder investigation getting on today? Anyone in cuffs yet?’

It was standard office banter and Larkin didn’t mean anything. O’Neill snapped though.

‘What the fuck would you know about it?’

Larkin stood up from his chair. ‘What’s your fucking problem?’

Someone cleared their throat in the doorway. Both men turned. It was Ward. The two detectives backed down.

‘DS O’Neill,’ Ward said. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

Four hours later, Ward sat in an unmarked Mondeo watching 16 Tivoli Gardens. The house was a standard piece of Belfast suburbia: three bedrooms, front garden, small garage. Down the side of the house, a five-year-old girl threw tennis balls against the wall, singing a song to herself.

Ward recognized O’Neill’s daughter, despite the changes in her from a year ago. Even now he was here, sitting outside the house, he wasn’t sure about talking to Catherine. He was violating an unwritten rule. Your loyalty lay with other cops. No one else. Not even their family. Ward knew it was Brothers in Arms bullshit, used to hide a multitude of sins. He’d watched peelers get their partners to cover for them, lying to their wives: ‘Pat’s questioning someone . . . he had to go to court . . . he’s tied up with a suspect.’ Ward wondered what made cops such prolific cheats. O’Neill wasn’t messing around though, he knew that much. He also knew about the flat in Stranmillis and that he hadn’t been home for six months.

Earlier that morning, Ward had stuck his head into CID. It was empty, except for O’Neill, sitting in front of his computer. He’d checked with Doris on the front desk. O’Neill had been in for two hours before his shift. It had been going on for months. First in, last to leave. Anyone else, Ward would have been pleased. Showing some initiative, getting a head start. It wasn’t anyone else though.

O’Neill had done a good job of hiding his personal life from Musgrave Street. The rest of the shift hadn’t noticed a thing. Ward started to wonder if he worked in a station full of blind men. He told himself they were busy, up to their eyeballs in paperwork. He knew though that half the shift couldn’t find a criminal unless he walked into the station, carrying a bloody knife, saying, ‘I killed the bitch.’ With O’Neill it was small things he had picked up on. The same suit. Same three shirts. He looked like shit. O’Neill had even started taking stuff home, reading through police files at night. He looked as if he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep for months. Ward had been waiting on a sign and the outburst with Larkin was enough to convince him.

Ward had seen it before with other peelers. There were three outcomes. O’Neill would burn out, he’d smack someone, or else he’d end up getting killed. It used to be drink was the way most peelers went. Home alone. Half a bottle of whiskey before they could close their eyes. That wouldn’t be O’Neill. Smacking Larkin though . . .

There was also the possibility he’d go down the third route. O’Neill had the kind of obsession that would get a peeler in trouble. When he locked in on something and put the blinkers on, he didn’t care. It was what had made him a good peeler. No matter the situation, no matter the odds, O’Neill would go after it. He said what he thought and didn’t care who was listening. It was also what had got him in trouble with Wilson in the first place.

Without Catherine and wee Sarah, Ward knew O’Neill would make the job everything. He was still young and it wouldn’t be long before he became reckless. Ward had seen it before. Detectives who reckoned they were invincible. A guy with nothing to go home to becomes a guy with nothing to lose. They start putting themselves out there. Going it alone. Thinking they can do it all. They find themselves drinking in bars they shouldn’t be drinking in. Not knowing the difference between ‘off duty’ and ‘on duty’. Peace Process or no Peace Process, this was still the North. It wasn’t hard for a peeler to disappear. To get into his car one morning, turn the key and . . .

O’Neill hadn’t got that far yet, but he’d started down the path. Ward could see it. There was a car crash on its way.

The door of 16 Tivoli Gardens opened and a man walked out. He was in his late thirties and wore a sharp grey suit. He was tall, handsome, the kind of man women found attractive. He paused by O’Neill’s daughter, working her tennis balls against the wall. She stopped and they exchanged a joke. Sarah smiled and the man put his hand on her head, ruffling her hair. He got into a black BMW 3 series and drove off.

Ward took mental note of the licence-plate. Could Catherine have cheated on O’Neill? Had she moved on already? Ward thought back to the first time he met her. It was a Sunday. He’d been walking the dog in the grounds of Belfast Castle and come across the family.

‘Ah, the O’Neills,’ he’d announced in gentle mockery. ‘Now isn’t this a lovely sight.’

O’Neill and Catherine were with Sarah, who wobbled behind on her pink bike. Ward’s dog was ex-police canine, a German Shepherd called Rex. He loved kids and licked Sarah’s face, prompting bouts of, ‘Mummy, Mummy, can we get a dog?’ Catherine asked if Ward fancied a cup of coffee, said she wanted to meet the great DI that she’d heard so much about.

In the café opposite the Shaftsbury Inn, Ward could see that O’Neill’s wife was smart. She gave as good as she got and wasn’t afraid of ribbing her husband in front of his superior. Ward also liked the daughter. She was pretty and well behaved. He asked about school and let her pet the dog, promising to bring him round to visit.

Catherine had thought Ward was the kind of uncle you would wish your kids had. She left feeling reassured, knowing her husband had someone like Ward looking over his shoulder at work. She had asked O’Neill several times to invite him round for dinner but they never managed it and life seemed to take over.

On the drive home that day, Ward had looked at Rex, curled in the footwell of the passenger seat, and he felt a pang of regret, thinking about O’Neill and his young family. He thought about Maureen and her tears when they learned that they couldn’t have kids of their own. He thought about her telling him that he could leave her and that she’d understand. He thought about the cancer, about the tint of her skin when the chemo started, about the vomiting, the worry and eventually, the resignation. That had been fifteen years ago. Ward had thought about remarrying but somehow it didn’t seem right. Maureen would have laughed, told him to stop being so stupid. He couldn’t get his head round it though and felt that he’d be betraying her. The dog had looked up at Ward from the footwell. He took his hand off the gear-stick and reached down to pet him.

Outside 16 Tivoli Gardens, Ward watched the BMW drive away. Catherine wouldn’t have moved on so quickly. It wasn’t in her. Too much respect. For O’Neill, for Sarah, for herself. He got out of the Mondeo and approached the house, thinking about the hand ruffling the girl’s hair.

‘Hi, Sarah.’

‘Hey!’ the girl exclaimed, recognizing Ward. ‘Do you have Rex with you?’

‘Not today, honey. He has been asking for you though. Wants to come over. We’ll get you to take him for a walk. Would you be up for that?’

The girl nodded enthusiastically.

‘Was that your uncle just leaving?’

‘Yeah.’

Ward remembered hearing about Catherine’s brother. A solicitor for McRoberts & James in Belfast. A pretty decent guy, O’Neill said, for a lawyer.

‘Your mum in?’

‘Yeah. Will I get her?’

‘No. Don’t worry. You just keep playing.’

Ward waited for Catherine to answer. He heard her approach, speaking as she opened the door.

‘OK. So what did you forget this ti—’

She faltered as soon as she saw Ward. Her face fell. She had known this day was coming. She’d waited for it ever since O’Neill joined up. The lone policeman, standing on your doorstep. ‘Mrs O’Neill?’ She thought about Sarah, hearing the tennis balls against the wall. She suddenly felt an urge to hold her daughter, to pull her close, to protect her.

Ward saw Catherine’s face and put up his hand.

‘Calm down. He’s all right. This isn’t one of
those
calls.’

It didn’t register.

‘Listen, Catherine. John’s fine. He’s alive and well. Probably getting up someone’s nose at this very minute.’

Slowly Catherine’s expression softened. The look of horror was replaced by one of curiosity.

‘This is . . .’ he searched for the words, ‘more of a social call.’

Ward waited. He had stood on hundreds of doorsteps and knew the territory. He needed her to invite him in, into the familiarity of the house, the cosiness. He needed it to open her up, to get her talking, and then to get her to listen.

‘You’d better come in,’ Catherine said as she opened the door and stood aside. She shouted round the corner: ‘Sarah. Five more minutes and then your bath.’

‘OK,’ a distracted voice shouted back.

In the kitchen Catherine offered Ward a cup of tea. He accepted, knowing it would help with what he wanted to say. It would make it feel less like she was talking to a cop.

‘So, Detective Inspector Ward?’

‘Please. Jack is fine.’

‘OK, Jack. So tell me, since when did the PSNI start making social calls?’

‘We’re a twenty-first-century police force, you know. We do everything now. Bobbies on the beat, old ladies across roads, cake sales.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ Catherine joked.

She handed him his tea. Ward took a drink. The woman didn’t speak, waiting for him to make the first move. You could tell she was married to a cop, Ward thought.

‘O’Neill doesn’t know I’m here.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Catherine gave a faint smile, realizing that Ward probably knew her husband as well as she did.

‘How long’s he been out of the house?’ Ward asked.

‘He told you?’

‘He hasn’t told anyone. No one at Musgrave Street knows.’

‘Except you.’

‘What can I say?’ said Ward humbly. ‘Guess us old dogs have our uses, after all.’

Catherine paused before she spoke. ‘It’s been six months. We’ve been on a break.’

‘Those don’t sound like O’Neill’s words.’

‘He was never here. It was like living with a ghost. Sarah sees him almost as much now as when he lived here.’

Ward didn’t answer. He wanted to hear what she had to say, to give her a sympathetic ear, let her know he was on her side. Already he could see the crack in the dam growing and with a little prodding . . .

Catherine went into the litany of problems. The shifts, the tiredness, the last-minute phone calls, the cancellations, the staring into space. Ward listened. It sounded like she’d rehearsed it hundreds of times, over and over in her mind, trying to make sense of it all. He thought this was the first time that she’d said it out loud. The first time she’d let it all out. She was a peeler’s wife, after all. There weren’t exactly a lot of people you could bare your soul to. It was more than that though, he thought. Catherine was a private person. There was something old-fashioned about her, a pride, not wanting to hang your dirty laundry out in public. He let her go on, sensing the tension that had built up over months. She needed to tell someone, to unload, to let it all out. Ward sat quiet, listening and nodding.

After ten minutes Catherine began to slow up and run out of steam. She lifted her tea and slurped. Ward took his time. He needed to let it settle. Let everything come to rest before trying to talk to her. The two of them drank their tea in silence. Finally Catherine spoke.

‘Sorry to throw all that at you.’

‘The course of true love,’ Ward said, then paused. ‘Sounds like it had been brewing for a while.’ He looked round the kitchen, taking in its domesticity.

‘He needs you, you know.’

‘He needs the job. Let’s not kid ourselves. That’s all he needs.’

Ward slowly shook his head. ‘That’s not true. And I think you know it’s not. He needs
you.
He needs this place. He needs Sarah. He needs those frigging tennis balls,’ Ward rolled his eyes, laughing softly. ‘He needs to know that there’s five more minutes and then it’s bath time. He needs to know there is more than chasing after some guy, trying to get a charge, a confession, something so it will all make sense.’

‘You
might know that, but
he
doesn’t.’

‘That’s because he’s young, because he’s stupid, because he’s trying to prove himself. Because he thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room. That he knows better than everyone. You’ve got to understand, Catherine. It’s what makes him a good peeler.’ Ward took a breath. ‘But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t need you. You and Martina Navratilova out there.’

Catherine smiled. Ward went on, telling her about his thirty years, about the other detectives he’d seen, guys like O’Neill. Stubborn. They’d bite on to something and never let go. Great cops. But they needed something else, something to come home to, something normal. Otherwise, it was them against the world. They’d go out on a limb. Start taking risks. Nothing to lose. Half the time they didn’t even know they were doing it.

‘Jack, it’s the job he cares about. Not us. He isn’t capable of both.’

‘I don’t think you really believe that.’

Catherine had thought about giving John an ultimatum: us or the job. But she knew her husband, knew he couldn’t stand being told what to do. Not by her, not by anyone. He’d leave in a moment of anger, just to spite her.

The front door opened. ‘That’s me in,’ Sarah shouted, pounding up the stairs.

Ward grinned at her voice and the thunder of her steps. ‘She’s a great kid, that one.’

Catherine sighed.

‘She needs him, Catherine. And I think you need him too. But I’ll tell you something else: we need him. The job needs him.’

Ward searched his thoughts, trying to get his head round it, trying to explain it to her.

‘The police here have changed, you see. I’m not saying it was perfect before, far from it. But at least it was full of peelers. Nowadays the place is run by glorified secretaries and accountants. Bean-counters.’

‘Careful,’ Catherine joked. ‘You’re talking to one of those bean-counters.’