Hurt (DS Lucy Black) (33 page)

‘Is this Annie?’ he asked. ‘Is she all right?’

Lucy shook her head. ‘Annie’s been taken out with Bell and a youth called Tony. He runs a gang in Gobnascale. Under Jackie Logue’s watch. Bell taught a computer class apparently that some of the youths attended.’

‘We’ll put out descriptions,’ Burns said. ‘Someone will spot them. This is a great result.’

‘They’ve gone for drink,’ Lucy said. ‘They’ll have to come back this way. If they see the Land Rovers outside they’ll either turn back or drive on round the point. We should send a car up as far as the prison. It can close in behind them when they pass. They’ll not see the activity here until after that anyway and we can maybe sandwich them in.’

Burns considered the suggestion a moment, then nodded. ‘Take a team with you,’ he said. ‘A few uniforms in case Bell gets heavy handed. Eh?’

* * *

In the end, they sat at the entrance to the prison for almost an hour before they saw the headlights of a car bouncing along the roadway towards them. They had parked about two miles from the house, on the verge at the prison gates; no one would think a police car outside a prison odd, even at that time of night, Lucy reasoned.

As the car passed, Lucy glanced across, keen not to be too obvious lest Tony recognize her, even through the tint of the police car windows. She was fairly sure that the vehicle that passed had three people in it. Certainly, there were two men in the front and a further figure sitting in the back seat.

Once the car had rounded the bend past the prison, they pulled off the verge and followed them along the road, keeping their own headlights off, using the overspill of light from the prison to help make their way. The last thing they wanted was Bell to spot them and take off around the point.

Instead, after a few hundred yards, they saw the bright red blinking of the brake lights on Bell’s car as he realized that there were Land Rovers parked outside the house. Instantly the lights on the car went out, save, however, for the reversing light to the rear of the vehicle as Bell tried reversing back along the roadway he had just driven down.

Lucy radioed through to the waiting Land Rover sitting outside the house to move up the road towards them, effectively sandwiching Bell’s car between them.

When Bell’s car appeared at the end of the stretch of roadway on which they now sat, Lucy leaned across and switched on their headlights and told the uniform driving to speed up.

The car ahead of them stopped abruptly. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the two front doors flung open and Bell and Tony spilled out onto the road and set off, one in each direction, down the incline into the fields bordering the road.

‘Get after them,’ Lucy snapped, already opening her own door. She sprinted the distance to Bell’s car, pulled open the rear door and reached it. A young-looking girl sat in the back seat, her expression one of shock.

‘Annie Marsden?’ Lucy asked.

The girl nodded.

‘I’m DS Black of the PSNI. You’re safe. OK?’

The girl glanced around her, then nodded.

‘Have they hurt you in any way?’ Lucy asked.

‘No,’ Annie replied quietly.

‘They haven’t tried to make you do anything?’

The girl shook her head.

‘Stay here,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll be back in a moment. Don’t get out of the car until I come back, do you understand?’

Annie Marsden nodded. She wore a light vest top and a denim skirt, her legs bare, save for streaks of fake tan. Lucy shrugged off her coat and handed it into the girl. ‘Wrap that around you,’ she said.

Standing, she looked across to the field where Tony had run. She could see the bobbing of torch beams as the two uniforms pursued him as he zigzagged in and out of the edge of the light from Magilligan. Finally, he seemed to lose his footing as he turned, and instead he slid, hitting the ground an instant before the uniforms were on him.

Lucy turned towards the opposite field where Bell had run and began the descent down the incline from the road. The ground was little more than marshland, and she could feel it seep around her feet as she stepped onto it. As she moved she could feel the mild tension of the mud sucking at her boots, the squelch as each foot was lifted.

To her left, she could see the uniform scouring the gorse that bordered the field, moving along it slowly, his torch angled at a height, the beam focused down to offer as wide an illumination as possible, searching for Bell.

Lucy pulled her own torch off her belt and, flicking it on, ran it along the length of the field. She could hear, beyond the shouting of Tony in the field opposite and the terrified lowing of cattle, the gentle rushing of water and she realized why the uniform had stopped where he had: the field abutted a stream, running down towards the lough. The edge of the field ended in a slight rise, where the stream, when it had burst its banks over the years, had pushed the earth along its edges upwards, creating a natural levee. She assumed that either Bell was hiding along it, or indeed had crossed the stream beyond in making his escape.

She slowly shone her torch along the length of the earthen levee, even as she moved closer to it. At its far end, away from where the uniform was moving, it merged with a thin copse of trees and low-lying bushes. It was for here that Lucy set off, assuming that Bell would have headed for cover.

She tried to increase her pace, constantly slowed by the sucking mud of the field, her feet sinking deeper as she moved closer to the stream itself, the land now water-logged, the surface reflecting the bounce of her torch beam.

As she approached the tree line, she could see a thin mist gather in loose clouds just beyond the levee, as if someone’s breath was condensing in the chilled night air. She assumed that Bell was lying just on the other side, panting hard from his own exertions, his breath condensing above his head, marking out his spot. She tried to step more carefully as she approached, aware that the dull sucking of mud around her feet would alert him to her proximity.

Gun in one hand, torch in the other, she crested the earthen embankment, moving over the top quickly, expecting to see Bell on the other side. Instead, the wide eyes of a cow rolled towards her as it struggled to raise its heft off the sodden ground in which it was trapped. The sudden movement of the creature caused Lucy to start and she lost her footing a little, sliding down the embankment towards the stream.

Suddenly, from among the trees to her right, Bell appeared, launching himself at her. He made to grab at her hair, managing only a loose grip. It was enough to pull her off balance, though not enough for him to retain hold of her as she fell.

She scrabbled along the ground, reaching for his feet, even as he kicked out at her to shake her loose. She grabbed one leg and tugged as hard as she could, effectively pulling Bell over the top of her and forcing the two of them to roll into the freezing water of the stream.

Lucy fell awkwardly, the motion of the roll resulting in Bell lying above her, pinning her down beneath the surface. She could taste mud in her mouth, her ears filled with the rush of the water, her hands grappling with the slimed stones of the stream bed in an attempt to gain purchase enough for her to push upwards and dislodge Bell from where he lay on top of her.

She could feel again his hands gripping at her hair, the back of her neck, trying to force her head downwards, further into the water. Bell shifting his position now, straddled her, his knees either side of her body as he tried to drown her, leaning his weight onto her. She managed to shift a little, onto her side, moving her head enough to manage a gasp of air, before Bell pressed harder, scraping the side of her face against the rocky stream bed.

By angling herself, however, she’d freed her hand a little. Scrabbling along the ground, she managed to find a solid enough surface to press against to lever herself. She pushed as hard as she could, her lungs feeling as if they would burst, her body suddenly aware of the chill. She bucked her body upwards, unseating Bell sufficiently for her to repeat the manoeuvre a second time, more forcibly. Bell, reaching out to arrest his fall, lost his balance sufficiently that Lucy was able to drag herself from under him. Gripping a rock from beneath her, she turned sharply in the water and swung upwards. The rock connected with the side of Bell’s face, stunning him enough momentarily for Lucy to push herself away from him and struggle to her feet.

Bell, too, was rising to his feet, cursing in the dark. He lunged for Lucy now, but she sidestepped him, swinging the rock a second time, connecting with his temple.

The lunge, combined with his weight and the slippery surface on which he stood, conspired against him and he fell into the water. In an instant, Lucy was on him, straddling him now, holding his head into the water. She gripped the back of his hair, pulled his head upwards sharply then slammed it downwards, his face connecting with the stones beneath the water with each strike.

She felt something rising inside her, felt a rage she had not felt since the night Mary Quigg died. She tightened her grip, holding his head under now with both hands as he thrashed in the water beneath her.

Suddenly, she was being lifted up and away from him. She felt arms constricting across her chest and she realized that the uniform had arrived and was pulling her away from Bell.

‘I’m all right,’ she said, twisting to look at the man. Only when she saw his expression did she understand that he had dragged her away for Bell’s protection, not for hers.

She stepped quickly away from him, holding her hands aloft to indicate she would not touch Bell again.

For his part, Bell rolled onto his back. He struggled to pull himself out of the stream and lay on the embankment, retching as he brought up the water Lucy had forced him to swallow. His hair was plastered to his scalp, his face smeared with dirt, his nose and lips oozing fresh blood and saliva down over his mouth and chin. He lay back finally, his breaths coming in laboured pants in between fits of laughter.

Lucy leaned over him, the movement causing the uniform to step towards her. Around Bell’s neck he wore a leather necklace on which hung a green holographic pendant. Shining her torch on it, Lucy saw, at its centre, an eye.

‘Get up,’ she said, pulling him by the shoulder.

‘I want to speak to my father,’ he said, not to Lucy, but to the uniform, twisting his head to look past her at the man. ‘Call my father. Call Jackie Logue.’

Bell and Tony were bundled into the back of the police car, the other uniform and Lucy taking Bell’s car, still blocking the roadway, in which sat Annie Marsden.

When she sat next to her, the girl offered Lucy back her coat.

‘You’re soaked,’ she explained.

Lucy smiled, taking it and wrapping it around herself. After the initial buzz she had felt, first in overpowering Bell, then in his arrest and the revelation that Jackie Logue was his father, Lucy now began to feel the chill, the sodden clothing clinging to her with a damp heat that she knew would eventually sap her energy. She rifled through her coat pocket and took out her phone.

Handing it to the girl, she said, ‘You should phone your parents. Tell them you’re with us.’

The girl hesitated, her hand stretching out towards but not touching the phone. ‘What should I tell them?’ she asked, unconsciously pulling at the hem of the skirt she wore.

Lucy looked across at her, smiling a little sadly. ‘Tell them you’re safe. That’s all that they’ll care about for now.’

* * *

An hour later, Lucy sat before her own mother. A Response Team had brought with them a change of clothing and Lucy now wore one of the unit’s boiler suits.

‘I’m fine,’ Lucy reassured her, as her mother asked for the third time how she felt.

‘That’ll need stitched,’ Wilson said, touching the gash on her face with the tips of her fingers.

Lucy shifted her head away sharply from her touch. ‘You knew about Bell, didn’t you?’

Her mother raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘How would I have known? You only made the connection yourself today.’

‘Not about now. About Louisa Gant. He killed her, didn’t he?’

Wilson stared at her a moment. They were sitting in one of the upper bedrooms, the one in which she had found Gavin Duffy. She moved across and closed the door softly, then turned and leaned her back against it. Lucy, sitting on the edge of the bed, stared at her, waiting for her to speak, determined to stay silent, determined not to allow her a way out.

Her mother coughed to fill the silence, then pushed herself off the door with her rump and moved towards her daughter. She sat next to her, their bodies not touching, both staring straight ahead.

‘He never admitted to it, but I knew Bell had been with her on the day she died,’ her mother said, finally. ‘I found a picture of him with her in an album she kept.’

‘I saw it,’ Lucy said.

Her mother turned. ‘You visited Gant’s? How is he?’

‘Broken,’ Lucy said. ‘How would you expect him to be? So you knew?’

‘I started investigating. Bell was only fourteen at the time. His mother was still with Logue at that stage. Once I connected his name to Bell, Special Branch took over.’

‘Why?’

Wilson shrugged.

‘Don’t pretend to be stupid. Why?’

Wilson took a deep breath, held it a moment, then released it slowly. ‘It was the new age of policing. They needed to be sure they had some support in those communities that hadn’t backed the RUC before the change. Gary Duffy was set against the Peace Process and especially against the police, even with the changes. He was threatening to target Catholics who joined, the whole bit. Logue was known to be more sympathetic to policing change.’

‘By the police covering up the fact that his son had killed a child, he became even more sympathetic, I’d imagine.’ Lucy had been told Gary Duffy had been a hawk. He’d never have supported the newly formed PSNI and, as a community leader, would have ensured that the residents in the area would not cooperate with them either. From her searches for Cunningham, Lucy knew just how damaging that lack of cooperation could be to an investigation. If Duffy could be discredited in the community’s eyes, and a more sympathetic community leader, like Jackie Logue, put in his place, the PSNI would find policing the area much easier. By covering up for Jackie Logue’s son, the PSNI had managed to make Logue a puppet himself, she reflected.