The Final Silence (20 page)

Flanagan shook her head. ‘Ida, we have a suspect.’

‘But Graham lied to you. And to me. He told you last night he was swimming when Rea died. He told me he was at a party meeting. I know he wasn’t at the pool. Why did he lie about it?’

‘No, Ida, listen to me. We have a suspect, I can’t tell you who, but his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. He was seen at the house around the time of the killing.’

‘But Graham . . .’

She almost said it. She almost told Flanagan that her husband had killed before. That he had confessed it to her before they married. Graham Carlisle had a coldness deep inside him that drove his ambition, that froze Ida and Rea out of his heart. She’d had a scene playing in her mind all day, and she could not shake it. Graham, the crowbar lifted, ready to bring it down on Rea’s skull. His own daughter.

‘But Graham what?’ Flanagan asked.

Ida pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. Forced the image as far back in her mind as she could. She knew it would not leave her, no matter how hard she tried to banish it.

‘This suspect,’ Ida said. ‘Is it the policeman Rea used to go with?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘Have you arrested him?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

The waitress returned carrying two cups of coffee on a tray. She placed them in front of Flanagan and Ida, left a bill on Flanagan’s saucer.

When she’d left, Flanagan said, ‘He’s absconded. But we’ll find him tonight or tomorrow.’

‘What if you’re wrong about him?’

‘I’m seldom wrong,’ Flanagan said.

‘But you might be,’ Ida said. ‘This time.’

No might about it. Not in Ida’s mind.

‘I don’t think so.’ Flanagan said. Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a bruise?’

Without thinking, Ida’s hand went to her cheek. She had seen the purple-brown flare beneath her eye in the mirror that morning. A dusting of foundation had hidden it. Or so she thought.

‘Just a little knock,’ Ida said. ‘I’m clumsy.’

Flanagan reached across the table and took her hand.

‘Ida, did something happen?’

‘No,’ Ida said, again with no thought. ‘Not at all.’

Stupid, she thought. Crazy. You were ready to tell this woman Graham killed Rea, but you can’t bear to say he laid hands on you?

Flanagan squeezed Ida’s fingers, looked her hard in the eye, and asked, ‘Did your husband hit you?’

Ida sat quite still, trapped between the desire to tell the truth, to be freed by it, and the need to keep her secrets. To show the world her good face, the devoted wife, the loving family not blighted by the same shameful and sordid fissures as lesser people. Still, after all that had happened, Ida’s instinct was to shield herself and her family from embarrassment.

What family?

A laugh escaped from her, shrill and ridiculous, a ring of madness to it, even to her own ears.

‘I think I’m losing my mind,’ Ida said.

‘You’re in grief,’ Flanagan said. ‘You’re going through a terrible ordeal. There are counselling services, people you can—’

‘Yes,’ Ida said.

Flanagan’s features creased with confusion. ‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, Graham hit me.’

‘I see,’ Flanagan said, her face softening. ‘You don’t have to go home. I can get you a place in a shelter this evening. He won’t be able to touch you again.’

‘No,’ Ida said. ‘I have to go home. I have things to do. Not for him. For Rea. I won’t run away from my husband. I’ve been a coward too long. Rea would still be alive, otherwise.’

Flanagan’s hand gripped Ida’s harder. ‘Rea’s death had nothing to do with—’

‘What are you running from?’

Flanagan sat back, her fingers slipping from Ida’s hand. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I can see it on your face,’ Ida said. ‘In your eyes. The way you walk, I can see it weighing on you.’

Flanagan’s eyelids flickered. She breathed through her nose, deep, her shoulders rising and falling. Her gaze dropped.

‘What is it?’ Ida asked. ‘Here I am, telling you the worst thing I could think of telling anyone. Why do you get to keep your secrets?’

Flanagan’s eyes met hers.

‘I have cancer,’ she said.

Three words, blunt and clumsy, spat out like they carried the disease with them. Flanagan looked away, put her hand over her lips as if trying to force the confession back into her mouth, to swallow the words as if they had never been spoken.

‘What kind?’ Ida asked.

Flanagan shook her head, her eyes brimming. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that. It’s not your worry.’

‘What kind?’ Ida asked again.

A pause, an inhalation, then Flanagan said, ‘Breast cancer. Malignant, according to the doctor.’

‘Oh, pet,’ Ida said. ‘Can they operate?’

Flanagan nodded. ‘They’ll remove the lump within a fortnight. And he talked about radiotherapy and chemotherapy. He said the survival rate is better than it’s ever been. But . . .’

Now Ida reached for Flanagan’s hand. ‘But you’re terrified.’

‘I don’t want to leave my babies.’

Flanagan crumbled in front of her, fell into a million scattered pieces.

Ida moved to the seat beside her, put her arms around the policewoman. Rocked her back and forth, felt the warm dampness of her tears against her own cheek as she whispered, ‘Oh darling, oh sweetheart . . .’

UPRICHARD’S WIFE ANSWERED
the door, her dressing gown pinched tight to her bosom. She blinked at Lennon through the gap, the security chain pulled tight, her gaze picking over the bruises and cuts on his face as she struggled to remember where she’d seen him before.

He could have told her it was at her daughter’s wedding reception four years ago. Lennon had drunk too much and made a fool of himself trying it on with one of the bridesmaids. Uprichard had taken him aside, gently suggested that it was time to go home.

Mrs Uprichard didn’t say a word to Lennon. She turned away from the door and called, ‘Alan? Alan! It’s for you.’

Uprichard entered the kitchen and sat down opposite Lennon. A mug of instant coffee steamed on the table.

Lennon asked, ‘Who goes to bed at nine o’clock on a Saturday night?’

Uprichard didn’t return the smile. ‘We do, when I’m on an early shift the next day. She wants you away by the morning.’

Lennon nodded.

Uprichard looked old. His grey hair jutted out from his temples. The pillow marks had almost faded from his cheek.

‘Who did that to you?’ he asked, indicating Lennon’s battered features.

‘Kevin McKenna.’

‘Michael McKenna’s nephew?’

‘Bernie McKenna has my little girl. I went to get her back. Kevin kicked me down the street.’

Uprichard wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘Maybe it’s the best place for her just now.’

Lennon stared hard at him. Uprichard didn’t back down.

‘What, you’re going to take a child on the run with you?’ he asked. ‘You know, I ought to call Flanagan right now. She’d have my job for this.’

‘I know,’ Lennon said. ‘And I appreciate it. You’ve been a good friend to me.’ He lifted the mug of coffee. ‘Have you anything stronger than this?’

‘What do you think?’

‘All right.’ Lennon took the blister strip of painkillers from his pocket. One for tonight, one for the morning, then he was out.

‘I suppose you’ve got a prescription for those,’ Uprichard said.

‘Somewhere,’ Lennon said. ‘Did you have any luck with what I asked you about on Thursday?’

‘About Graham Carlisle? A little. As far as I can gather, he was involved with loyalist paramilitaries as a young man. That’s not unusual. Plenty of politicians have their hands dirty in some way or other.’

‘How involved?’ Lennon asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Uprichard said. ‘I have one friend in Intelligence Branch, and she clammed up when I started asking questions. A little too quickly and a little too tightly, if you get my meaning.’

‘What’ve you heard around the station?’ Lennon asked. ‘About me. And about Rea.’

‘Not much,’ Uprichard said. ‘Flanagan runs a tight crew. They don’t go mouthing about what they’re up to.’

Lennon took a sip of coffee, wishing it were beer. ‘Not much is more than nothing.’

Uprichard looked at his hands, fingers entwined on the tabletop. ‘Just that she’s convinced you killed that woman.’

‘She’s no reason to be convinced,’ Lennon said. ‘She’s reaching. She wants an easy collar, and I happened to cross her path.’

‘Jack.’ Uprichard shifted in his seat.

‘What? Come on, say what you want to say.’

‘We’re talking about DCI Serena Flanagan,’ Uprichard said. ‘Not a lazy git like Jim Thompson. She’s a good detective. She’s smart, and she’s professional, and she’s thorough. She’s a better cop than you or I will ever be, and she doesn’t throw around accusations like a fishing line. That woman doesn’t put the finger on someone without good reason.’

Lennon set the mug down harder than he meant to. Dark brown liquid sloshed over the edge. ‘You think I did it?’

Uprichard couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

‘Then what are you saying?’

Uprichard stood, his shadow spilling over the table. Lennon felt it on his skin.

‘You know, I got a call from him last night.’

Uprichard asked, ‘From who?’

‘The man who killed Rea.’

‘Did you tell that to Flanagan?’

‘I tried,’ Lennon said. ‘She hung up on me.’

‘Why?’

‘I’d had a drink.’

Uprichard indicated the blister strip. ‘On top of those?’

Lennon shrugged.

Uprichard shook his head. ‘You couldn’t do without, even when you’re about to lose everything. I never told you I had a son, did I?’

Lennon looked up at him. ‘No. Never.’

‘Gavin. Bright young lad. Could’ve done well for himself. He was studying engineering over in Warwick. He started out on cannabis, as far as I know. When I found out, I didn’t make too big a deal of it. More students try it than don’t, I suppose. But it didn’t stop there for Gavin. He wound up getting kicked out of university. Before too long he was on the streets, shooting heroin.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Lennon said.

‘I tried to help him. He was living rough in Birmingham by then. I travelled over, got him into a treatment programme, got him a place in a hostel. But he didn’t last. A month later, he was back on the streets, needle in his arm. I went over again, tried to put him straight. Lasted six weeks that time. Then I got a call one night, a police station in Walsall, saying he was caught shoplifting, trying to steal stuff so he could sell it on.

‘So I flew over again. I went to the station to lift him, took three months off work and stayed there with him. The magistrate let him off with community service so long as he got treatment. I got him set up. Did everything for him. Nursed him through the withdrawal. Got him a wee flat, sorted out his benefits, all of that. And we sat there in his kitchen, talked like you and me are talking now. He cried his eyes out, swore on his mother’s life he’d never go back on the heroin, swore blind he’d sort himself out.’

Uprichard’s face reddened, his hands shaking with the memory. Lennon couldn’t look at him any more, turned his gaze away.

‘I left him there, happy with him, happy with myself. Sure he was on the right road. A month later, another phone call in the night. Him crying down the line to me from another police station. He’d been lifted for stealing again. A bike from someone’s garden, this time. He needed to sell it to buy more heroin. I hung up the phone. I haven’t heard from my son or spoken to him since. That was twelve years ago. I don’t know where he is now. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. I don’t want to know until he’s ready to stand up for himself.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Lennon said. ‘I’m sorry. Really.’

‘I don’t need your pity,’ Uprichard said. ‘I just need you to understand that I won’t help you if you won’t help yourself. You’ve been digging yourself into this hole for how long now? When are you going to reach the bottom? You’ve all but lost your career. Your daughter’s gone. You’ve got a cop after you for murder. How much worse does it have to get for you, Jack, before you stop digging?’

He went to the door.

‘You can have the couch in the front room. Me and the wife get up around six. You’ll be gone by then.’

Uprichard left the room without waiting for a response.

Lennon looked at the blister strip on the table. One for tonight, one for the morning. He touched his fingertips to the plastic and the foil. He swallowed, imagining the warmth the pills would bring, the comfort. Just to get through the night.

He swiped the strip away, sending it skittering across the table and onto the floor.

CALVIN APPROACHED FLANAGAN,
yawning.

‘Go home,’ she said. ‘It’s late.’

He shook his head, yawned again. ‘It’ll not be long till they’re done.’

They watched the team pick over Lennon’s car beneath the searing workshop lights. Rubbish lay strewn around the floor – tissues, empty packets, wrappers, a few CDs, the car’s tattered manuals. The clothing they’d taken from the flat had been sent to the forensics lab in Carrickfergus.

DC Farringdon finished his inspection of the well beneath the spare wheel, the carpet pulled aside.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘You want us to pull the panels out?’

‘No,’ Flanagan said. ‘Let’s call it a night. Thank you, everyone.’

As the crew downed their tools and readied to leave, Calvin asked, ‘Are you going public?’

Flanagan had agonised over it all day. The press had been told she would make a brief statement outside the station at ten the next morning. Would she name Lennon as a suspect? Should she? The media and the politicians would descend like vultures on the news that a policeman was being hunted by his own. Naming a suspect was a risk at the best of times. She had to be sure.

‘I’ll decide in the morning,’ she said. ‘Anything from the hotels?’

‘He checked into the Days Hotel on Hope Street last night. He hasn’t checked out, but I doubt he’ll go back there. I’ve got a car on the way to pick up whatever he left behind.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now for Christ’s sake, go home.’