Controlled Explosions (6 page)

‘Who did, Catriona? Your brother?’

She was crying hard now. ‘They’re all gone. He killed her. Your da’s a cop. Why didn’t you help me? I thought you’d know what to do. I thought you’d be able to.’

This was crazy. All Catriona’s bullying, she’d just been trying to
talk
to Paula? Paula hardly knew what she was doing. She took a step away from Aidan, who seemed to have gone somewhere inside himself, frozen. She put out her hand to Catriona. The gun looked old, and heavy, an evil petrol shade of black. ‘Come on. Give it to me. It’s going to be all right.’

‘It’s not. She’s dead. She’s not coming back.’ Tears stuttered from the girl’s eyes.

‘I know. But … it will be OK all the same. Trust me, Catriona. If anyone knows, it’s me.’

She reached out her hand to the gun. The noise of sirens got louder and louder, until it was right on top of them.

‘That was good work,’ said Johnson. ‘Maguire’s daughter was nearly on the doorstep, I hear. The O’Keeffe girl had a gun. Could have been nasty if we hadn’t broken the brother in time.’

‘Is Paula all right?’ Bob was sitting in Johnson’s office, overlooking the town. The riot had at last burned itself out, like a fire starved of fuel. The protestors had wandered home, the streets empty except for torched cars and litter and stones. The last rays of sun touched the roofs of the town. It looked peaceful, a huddle of buildings cradled in the green hills. It looked like nothing bad ever happened there.

‘Aye, she’s grand. Upset, though. We took her down to see her da. She’s at her wee friend’s now.’

Bob waited to hear why he’d been called in here, after such a long day, the blood and the bones and the sun burning into his head.

‘You were asking about the list,’ Johnson said.

Bob readied himself. This was it. He’d had a good career. There were other things you could do at forty-eight … prisons, security … when you had no choice but to face something, you faced it. ‘There is one, then?’

‘Aye. Off the record.’ Johnson slapped something down on the table. Bob looked. For a moment he didn’t understand what he was seeing. That wasn’t his name. It was …

‘But he’s …’

‘He’s a liability. We couldn’t get him on that thing with his wife, but you saw him today. He’s a loose cannon. He’ll get someone killed sooner or later. Maybe himself.’

‘He’s Ca—’

Johnson glanced at him. ‘The new police force of Northern Ireland will not be gerrymandered, Sergeant Hamilton. We need to be beyond reproach. We need to weed out the bad apples. And he is rotten. Him and that editor pal of his, they used to leak more than the bloody
Titanic
.’

John O’Hara was eleven years dead and it didn’t seem right to impugn the man. ‘But the daughter,’ Bob said. ‘He’s bringing her up all by himself. Her mother—’

‘There’ll be a generous award,’ said Johnson. ‘And I’m sure the wean would like her da around more. Since he’s all she has.’

Bob could hardly get the words out. ‘But he’s … no, sir, this can’t be. He’s the best officer I ever worked with. And he never gives up, not on a case, not on his wife, not on …’ He tailed off. PJ hadn’t given up on Bob, not even when the investigation into Margaret Maguire’s death went cold, tailed off into nothing. But Bob had given up on him.

There was a silence. Johnson just looked at him.

‘Does he know?’ Bob looked down at the desk. It was arranged the way it had been for years, the phone, the jotter, the pencil tin. They were putting in computers now. He’d have to learn how to use one, and have a mobile phone and all that like the young ones did. If he wasn’t being put out, he’d have to learn to work in this new world.

‘We thought you could tell him. You were partners, after all.’

Until the day Bob had gone round to arrest PJ in his own house. More of Johnson’s dirty work. He’d never forgotten the look on PJ’s face when he’d come to the door with the uniformed constable. That bad day back in 1993. And the wee lassie, staring at him with accusing eyes. Her mother’s eyes.

‘He’s in ward eight,’ said Johnson, passing Bob an envelope. ‘Send him our best. He can take his notice as sick leave.’

‘He’s out? Just like that?’

Johnson gave him a look. It said –
I know you wanted this
. And Bob had, God help him, sometimes he had wanted PJ gone. Wanted it on the day in 1972 when they’d sent a Belfast Catholic to fill the vacant place left by Robinson getting blown to bits. Wanted it when PJ’s wife had gone and he’d refused to cooperate, refused to believe there were no signs of forced disappearance. Refused to see what was there, if only you looked.

‘Make your choice, Bobby boy. It’s this way or the high way.’

Bob found he was nodding. He would do it. Of course he would.

‘Head on home after,’ said Johnson. ‘Pick up some flowers for Linda, she’ll like that.’ Bob couldn’t bear the way he said it. The network. The old boys. In it together. He stood up, taking the envelope in his hand. That was how you got through the job – you did what you were told. You never asked was it right, because that way you’d never have any peace, ever again.

Bob made his way down the corridors of the police station. He put out his hands to the walls, the carpet tiles fraying and falling off, as if they might close in on him. It was hot still, so hot, a stale, sweaty layer of it pressing all over your skin.

Outside in the car park he breathed in, but the air was no better – smoky, with the tang of burnt-out fires. The sky was burning red too, the exact shade of blood. What was it Linda used to say to Ian?
Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.
It would be hot again tomorrow.

‘… has to be soon, he’s getting spooked, I think …’

Bob turned instinctively at the sound of the voice. For a moment he was confused – who was she talking to? – then he realised the Corry girl had a mobile phone tucked up in her hand, hidden under her fall of hair. She started for a second, then recovered. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said into the phone, and then, to Bob: ‘Sergeant Hamilton. I’m awful sorry to hear about DC Maguire. Is he all right?’

‘Bullet in the leg. I’m away down to see him now.’

‘Tell him I was asking for him, will you?’

He looked at her. Her face was flushed, as if he’d caught her out, but she had herself in hand all the same. A cool customer. ‘I will. Goodnight, miss.’

‘It’s DC.’

He felt the anger rise. ‘I have to head on.’

She stepped forward, pushing back her fair hair where it had fallen loose around her face. ‘Sergeant – can I ask you something? How long have you worked with DI Johnson?’

‘Nigh on thirty years or so. We started out together.’

‘You trust him?’

He looked at her. Apart from the hair, she was composed, her black suit neat and pressed. No sign she’d been working all day in the oven of the police station. Cold and sharp as a nail. ‘With my life,’ he said.

‘Has he ever asked you to do anything you felt wasn’t right?’

Yes. This. Fire a good man when he’s down. ‘Miss Corry. It’s not appropriate for us to be having this discussion about a senior officer.’

She just looked at him. ‘It’s Detective Constable Corry. And I’m afraid that if you won’t have it now, you’ll be having it later, with some more … significant people than me. Does that make sense to you?’

‘That’s not for me to say.’

‘Bob. Did you not wonder how those kids had a list of police home addresses? It’s not such an easy thing to get hold of, is it?’

‘I don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘I think you do. Am I making myself clear here, Bob? I’m trying to help you.’

He looked away. ‘Excuse me. I have to go.’

PJ was on the secure ward, the one with soldiers outside. If anyone got wind there was a police officer in hospital, it wouldn’t be beneath the IRA to smuggle in guns, finish the job. Even in this so-called ceasefire. Bob showed his pass to the very young, very nervous squaddie on the door, whose gun was nearly bigger than himself. ‘Thanks, Sergeant, that’s fine.’ Liverpool accent. Shaving cuts on his neck. All this might be over soon. Hospitals without guards. Getting into your car without checking beneath it. A new world. And Bob would have to be part of it, since he wasn’t on the list. It was hard to take in, life on this side of the mirror. Bob pushed open the swing doors.

PJ was all alone in the eight-person ward. He was staring at the wall, his leg covered in plaster, hoicked up in a metal cage. There was no sign of the daughter, for which Bob was deeply grateful. He couldn’t have dealt with her today, looking at him with her mother’s eyes in her face. PJ barely acknowledged Bob sitting down.

‘Well, PJ. Anything you need?’

‘Aye, a femur that’s not banjaxed.’

‘I’m sorry for what happened.’

‘What did you do with them? Red Hugh’s weans?’

‘The girl’s under age, so it’ll be young offenders for her. At least they caught up to her in time … Paula OK?’

PJ looked away. ‘She’ll be grand. She’s been through worse.’

True. Bob paused for a moment. ‘The brother’s remanded in custody. He could be seeing his da in the Maze before too long.’

‘What about the – remains?’

Bob tried to speak gently. ‘It’s their mother, we think. She’d been shot in the head. Been there a few weeks.’

‘And he killed her? Her own son?’

‘Looks that way. God knows how they’ve kept going, the girl’s only the same age as your Paula. She’s at her school.’

PJ frowned at the mention of his girl. ‘They always said we should move house. Too dangerous, staying in the one place. I thought it’d be OK. But Paula …’ He tailed off.

Bob heard the distant sounds of the hospital, beeps and running feet, and if you listened hard enough, crying. Hearts breaking. After the baked heat of outside, there was a chill in here that settled on your skin like mist. Bob wondered how it would be to lie in bed here with that trussed-up wean outside and wait for someone to come and shoot you. He knew exactly why PJ had never moved house, even though RUC officers were supposed to shift about every few years, for security. He was waiting in case she came back. Margaret. Bob could have told him what he knew, but he never would. He’d promised.

‘So what’s the craic?’ PJ scratched at his thigh. ‘You’re here with some work for me, I hope. I’m going spare.’

‘PJ,’ said Bob, sitting up straight in his plastic chair. The envelope was sweaty in his hand. ‘I’m very sorry. Believe me.’

Paula lay awake on the camp bed in Saoirse’s room. On either side of her, Saoirse and her younger sister Niamh slept in single beds. Niamh’s side of the room was all boy bands, puppies, posters of the cast of
Friends
. Saoirse’s had pictures of Noah Wyle, and diagrams of the human body she’d drawn on in highlighter pen to help with her exam revision. The house was full of people, all together, all safe, all asleep. Except for Paula.

She stared up at the ceiling, which the girls had decorated in softly glowing stars. It was hard to sleep on the camp bed, but that wasn’t what kept her awake. She was thinking of her dad, shot in the leg. How she’d nearly lost him too, really lost everything. She was thinking of Catriona, and what the other girl had been living with all this time – her mother dead in the shed, they said, killed by her brother – and now she was going to prison, they said. She was thinking of her own mother and that was dangerous; those were the kinds of thoughts that once you started you couldn’t stop and they’d pull you under sure as a strong current in the sea. She was thinking of Saoirse, sound asleep, and how she’d spent the evening trying to cheer Paula up, putting on stupid videos of
The Little Mermaid
and
Annie
and singing along like they were eight; of Pat, who’d come straight to the hospital when she heard, all tears and hugs; and Aidan … Aidan. How he’d pulled her into him when the van came round the corner and the policemen jumped out in their body armour and helmets, shouting at Catriona to get away, get back. The feel of his arms round her back, shaking. She could still feel his kiss on her mouth, as if he’d stamped it there. And the gun in Catriona’s hand. Nearly every RUC family had been attacked at one time or another, but still. This was her house. This was her family.

In the dark, her fists were clenched. She was thinking this:
as soon as I can, I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave and I am never going to come back.

But now there was Aidan. She wasn’t going to think about that. She had to try to keep at least one thought straight in her head. And maybe, after everything they’d been through, he might feel the same.

Bob was sitting in the car outside his house. It was dark, the orange of street lights shining over the little cul-de-sac. Linda asleep in the room upstairs, Ian downstairs in his adapted bed, with the low sides to make it easier to move him. He’d been sent home with an oxygen tank. He was hooked up to it, to life, his chest moving up and down in the dark. Bob’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He couldn’t go inside, to the smell of sickness and the sound of Ian’s wet breath. He just couldn’t.

At that time of night, he was back at the station in ten minutes. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Sit at his desk, look through the notes from today, try to make sense of what had happened. Of the farm, and those kids, and Johnson, and PJ … He nodded to the desk sergeant, who was reading a thriller under the desk, and went up to the incident room, expecting it to be empty.

‘Sergeant Hamilton!’ Helen Corry was there, along with two men he didn’t recognise, both in suits. They were sitting around her desk, talking in low voices, and jumped as if he’d disturbed them in something illegal.

‘What are you doing here, miss?’

‘I’m working late. These are some … colleagues from Belfast.’

‘Oh.’ Bob stood there. For some reason he was very aware of the gun in his holster.

Then Corry was up and moving across the room to him. She was still in the suit from earlier, her hair hanging loose. She looked no older than the girl from the farm today. ‘Bob, you shouldn’t be here.’ Her voice was low and urgent. ‘Go now and we’ll say no more. I know you’ve nothing to do with it.’