Thrown Down (7 page)

Patricia suddenly felt very frightened. ‘You wouldn’t leave me?’

‘Tell me the rest of your story, Patty’ said Dennis. ‘It’s already beginning to sound pretty sordid’.

‘Sordid? Well now there’s a nice wee word for what went on back in Northern Ireland when I had to grow up so fast I could barely take notice of anything’.

‘Is that when you were going out with Fergal? Did his associations show you things you never should’ve seen? Is that why you ran?’

‘Being involved with Fergal wasn’t what made me run, Dennis’.

‘Then what did? And where does your brother Padraig come into it? Was he friends with Fergal?’

‘Oh yes’ Patricia confirmed. ‘They were as thick as thieves. They were more like brothers’.

Dennis was beginning to put two and two together. For it all to have ended so dramatically and with Patricia cutting herself from her family all this time must mean that the close bonds between players must’ve been compromised potentially in a fatal way. Patricia, his wife and the mother of his children had already revealed herself as being a totally different woman from the one he knew and loved so dearly. She’d admitted to having gone out with someone who must’ve been involved in the killing of innocent people. Like a lot of Australians who couldn’t claim Irish descent his only knowledge of the Irish ‘troubles’ was from what he’d seen on the nightly news and read about in the paper. He knew there was a peace agreement over there now that had brought much of the violence to an end but he also knew that many had fled from the North of Ireland during the seventies and eighties to a new life in Australia where they’d found peace and an opportunity to leave all that stuff behind them. He could understand if that’s what the story was with Patricia. But she was stirring it up. She was making her own situation sound far more sinister than he’d ever heard before and he wondered just how close she’d come to being part of the IRA herself.

‘Did you cover for Fergal or Padraig, Patricia? Is that what this is all about?’

‘No’.

‘Then what the hell is it all about?’

‘They covered for me!’ Patricia blurted out.    

Dennis thought the world had stopped spinning for a moment. ‘Would you mind explaining yourself, please?’

‘If you’re looking for the one with blood on their hands then look no further because that was me’ Patricia admitted, tearfully. ‘They paid the price. I got away with it’.

‘What? Are you talking about Fergal and your brother Padraig?’

‘Yes! And a woman called Deirdre Murphy. Let’s not forget her’.

THROWN DOWN FIVE

Detective Superintendent Jeff Barton had little experience of dealing with crimes that carried a sectarian connection to the Northern Ireland troubles. In fact he’d had only one such case to deal with during his career and he was still at school when the IRA bombed Manchester back in 1996. But the more he looked into where he was going to find the answers to the murders of both Padraig O’Connell and Barry Murphy the more he believed that there was a link between the two cases that would make finding those answers all the more difficult.

‘This looks like a professional hit to me’ said the pathologist June Hawkins as she stood in the middle of Barry Murphy’s office and looked at the blood stained scene of his slaying. His eyes were still open. The whiskey he’d been holding had spilled all over the floor. ‘Look at the way it was done’ she continued. ‘Right in the middle of his forehead’.

‘I agree, June’ said Jeff who was standing with her and DI Ollie Wright. They were surrounded by a forensics team that had begun to trawl every inch of the place for clues of some other identity. The identity of a killer.

‘And no sign of a forced entry, sir’ Ollie reminded his boss. ‘And it looked like he’d prepared a glass for his visitor. He was planning to drink with him’.    

‘So why would someone with whom he was on such friendly terms want to walk in here and kill him?’ Jeff speculated. ‘What had he done to so mortally offend someone that he must’ve previously been on good terms with? This is going to be messy. I just know it’. 

‘What a waste of all that lovely Irish whiskey now spilt all over the floor’ said June Hawkins. ‘What a criminal waste. I once got very drunk at a pathologists conference in Dublin a few years ago on gallons of Irish whiskey. I don’t remember much but I think I had a rather good time and that it involved the Norwegian delegate in some way. I can’t think how but I’m sure his name was Carl’.

‘No, of course not’ said Jeff, smiling.

‘I never heard from him again though’ said June, suddenly disappointed. ‘Its funny how that sort of thing happens isn’t it’

‘I know’ said Jeff. ‘But can we get back to the bits of Barry Murphy’s brain splattered all over the wall, the floor, his desk and his chair’.

‘Sorry, love’ said June, smiling at Jeff. ‘You know how detached we become in this business, Jeff’.

‘Yes I do and that’s why we love you. Keep up the good work!’

‘She’s quite a case, isn’t she?’ remarked DI Ollie Wright in the car. Jeff was driving them out to Alderley Edge to see the family of Barry Murphy.

‘Who? Our June Hawkins? She certainly is. They broke the mould when they made her that’s for sure’.

Ollie scrolled down his email messages that he was reading on his phone. He’d had an argument with his father last night about the internet. His father said all this technology was taking over the world and the simple way human beings needed to live their lives. Ollie had disagreed saying that his work as a police officer would be made so much harder without access to the internet and computer systems at work. They’d had to beg to differ in the end.

‘Now this might be interesting, sir?’ said Ollie as his attention was taken on a particular email from a contact he’d made in the PSNI. ‘Apparently, Padraig O’Connell’s murder victim, the RUC officer James Carson, was shot dead using his own gun’.

‘What?’

‘Yeah’ said Ollie who was reading the rest and taking it all in. ‘The only gun they found with O’Connell’s prints on it was Carson’s official issue handgun’.

‘Do they know how that came to be?’

‘Yeah’ said Ollie who was reading at the same time as explaining. ‘Apparently at the trial O’Connell claimed that Carson had pulled his gun on him but that they’d got into a scuffle and the gun went off when it had been pointing at Carson. The prosecution never pushed it any further because they were happy to be able to put O’Connell away for a long time without having to clarify any details that might get in the way of that’.

‘Where could they have pushed it further to I wonder?’ said Jeff.

‘Do you think they might have known but didn’t want to go there for some reason?’

‘It’s a possibility’ said Jeff. ‘I tend to think there was probably a lot going on with the justice system in Northern Ireland at that time that even police officers like us wouldn’t get to know about. After our experiences with other recent cases I would not be surprised at anything the establishment did to get its own way and dish something up to the public in the way they want it to be. But there are probably more hidden agendas when it comes to the political affairs of Northern Ireland than there are hidden snakes in a South American rainforest and we’ll only get to know about them when we tread on them’.

‘Is that what you think might be happening here, sir?’

‘Ollie, we’ve had two murders in the last three days. One victim was a former IRA gunman who murdered a serving police officer and the other was someone whose family suffered at the hands of the IRA when they abducted his mother. I’d bet my life that there’s something going on here that we’ve yet to find’.

‘You’re convinced the two cases are linked then, sir?’

‘Yes, I am’ Jeff replied. ‘I just don’t know how yet’.

‘Well coming back to O’Connell and Carson … O’Connell made a full confession which formed the basis of the prosecution case but the shadow that’s always hung over it all is that the body of James Carson has never been found’.

‘Really?’

‘Padraig O’Connell had always refused to say what he did with it’.  

When they got to the address they had for the late Barry Murphy neither Jeff nor Ollie could resist being impressed by the appearance of such a grand property sitting behind wrought iron gates on a private road that nobody would just ‘pass by’.

‘It looks like BM Cars served its owner well, sir’ said DI Ollie Wright. ‘The company had a turnover that ran into millions after Barry Murphy had built it up over the last twenty years’.

‘You say that the rest of his family weren’t involved in the business?’

‘No they weren’t, sir’ Ollie confirmed. ‘There seems to have been some kind of rift between Barry and the rest of his family. None of them were employed in the company in any way and the only investment had come from Barry Murphy. He was the sole shareholder’.

‘So where did he get his initial investment from?’

‘That’s not clear at the moment, sir’.

‘But if I know you it will be before long’.

Ollie smiled. ‘Thank you, sir’.

The door was opened by a young woman in a white shirt that she was wearing outside her short black skirt. She introduced herself as Tabatha Murphy’s sister Jade Matheson and she  led them through into a large round hallway with a high ceiling and doors going off to the left and right. Straight ahead of them was what looked like the lounge area and just to the left of that was a circular staircase going up to the first floor landing which was visible above them as it went all the way round. It wasn’t the biggest of such houses that Jeff had ever seen but it was certainly one of the most ostentatious. Everything about the decoration and the furniture shouted loudly that the people who lived here had pots of money but not necessarily much taste. He and his late wife Lillie Mae had often said that even if they won the lottery and had millions at their disposal they wouldn’t use some of it to fund a move out to a house like this in an area like this. They wouldn’t have felt right although since she’d passed away he’d had more time to reflect on what their future might’ve looked like. And they would’ve been happy anywhere as long as they were together with their son Toby.   

‘Very real wives of Cheshire’ Ollie whispered to Jeff.

‘You’re not kidding’ Jeff whispered back, looking round.

Jade Matheson had bottle blond hair and false nails that she’d left unpainted. She had short black leather stiletto boots and spoke with an accent that suggested to Jeff that she was a Northerner who didn’t want to sound like one. He hated that. She explained that her sister Tabatha was busy in a meeting with her solicitor and wouldn’t be long. When Jeff asked Jade what the meeting was about she said that her sister was securing her financial position following her husband’s death.

‘Really?’ Jeff questioned. ‘With all due respect, her husband is barely cold. Can’t all that wait until later?’

‘Not if you’d met my brother-in-law’s family’ said Jade with a very disapproving look. ‘They’re very working class and are probably trying to figure out how they can get their dirty little hands on my sister’s money as we speak. Please come through to the lounge and I’ll get the maid to serve you some coffee whilst you wait’.

Jeff and Ollie raised their eyebrows at each other. Just who did these people think they bloody were? They followed Jade into the lounge that had a large window almost from floor to ceiling offering an admittedly amazing view of the house gardens and the Cheshire plains beyond. The maid looked young and had the slightly olive complexion of an Eastern European. She was dressed in an all white style of uniform served the coffee and then they waited. And the longer they waited the more irritated Jeff in particular became. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been kept waiting whilst a widow sorted out her financial position before talking to the police about who may have murdered her husband.

‘How long does your sister plan to keep us waiting?’ asked Jeff.

‘I couldn’t say’ said Jade, irritably. ‘But she’ll be through when she’s done’.

‘She does understand that this is a murder investigation?’

‘I think she has grasped that, yes’ answered Jade sarcastically. ‘But there are practicalities to consider and if you knew my sister you’d know that she has to sort all that out before she can even consider grieving’.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that people deal with death in their own way, officer’ Jade stated. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me’.

‘I’d be obliged if you could tell your sister what I said’ said Jeff.

‘I can’t promise’.

‘Do your best, please’.

When Tabatha Murphy came through she didn’t apologise for keeping them waiting. She was clutching her mobile phone as if her life depended on it but at least she looked the part of the grieving widow. She was in an all in one black dress with a black belt around her slender looking waist. She looked thin and almost emaciated. Jeff thought that it must be like making love to a bag of bones. She’d probably never actually finished a meal for years. He’d never found stick insects like her attractive. His late wife Lillie Mae had never been overweight but she’d been blessed with what he’d call a normal figure, the kind of figure preferred by men who really did respect women and didn’t see them as bits of skirt. Sometimes she’d only have to look at him a certain way and he felt his legs turn to jelly. He missed her so very much.