So Say the Fallen (Dci Serena Flanagan 2) (2 page)

Keep hold of yourself, he thought. Whatever happens, keep hold of yourself.

Roberta took slow, measured steps from the threshold to her husband’s side. McKay followed, keeping back from the bedside. What had once been a spacious sitting room was now cramped, with a wardrobe and a chest of drawers, a bedside locker, a television on the wall and, facing that, the electric care bed.

A care bed. Not a hospital bed. Mr Garrick had been quite clear about the distinction, though McKay could see little difference between this and the beds that populated every hospital ward he’d ever visited. Cost thousands, Mr Garrick had said. It lay positioned so that he could see through the patio doors, out onto the beautifully tended garden and the trees beyond. Now the curtains were drawn, and the sun would never shine on Henry Garrick again.

McKay put a hand on Roberta’s firm, still shoulder and felt the warmth of her through the fabric of her light dressing gown. Warm skin, not cold, like her husband’s would surely be. McKay swallowed bile once more. He squeezed gently, but if she felt the tightening of his fingers she did not let it show.

Her husband lay like a man in sound sleep, his mouth open, his eyes closed. A snore should have rattled out of him.

What devastation, McKay thought. How Mr Garrick had lived this long was mystery enough. A little less than six months
ago he had been driving his favourite car, an early seventies Aston Martin V8 Vantage, through the country lanes that surrounded the village. The investigators had estimated his speed at the time of the accident as approximately fifty-five miles per hour. Charging around the bend, he had managed to swerve past all but one of the cluster of cyclists he had come upon. One of them, a young father of two, had died within moments of being struck, his helmet doing him little good against the force of the impact with the Aston’s bonnet.

Mr Garrick had not been so lucky. As the car swerved then spun, it swept through a hedgerow before barrel-rolling across a ditch and into a tree. The car’s front end buckled, forcing the engine back into the cabin, taking Mr Garrick’s legs.

The fire had started soon after. The cyclists who had such a narrow escape did all they could, one of them suffering severe burns as he dragged what remained of Mr Garrick from the wreck. Another was a nurse, well experienced in trauma surgery. They kept him alive, whether or not it was a merciful act.

Regardless, now he lay dead, drool crusting on his scarred chin. Pale pink yogurt clinging to the wispy strands of his moustache. The same yogurt his nightly sachet of morphine granules was mixed with. Ten empty sachets lay scattered on the table over his bed, behind the row of framed photographs. One of Mr Garrick’s parents, long gone, one of him and Roberta on their wedding day, another of his wife, tanned and glowing, smiling up from a beach towel. Then finally a small oval picture of Erin, the child they had lost before her second birthday.

Reverend Peter McKay had presided over that funeral too. One of the hardest he’d ever done. Grief so raw it had charged
the air in the church, made it thick and heavy. McKay had heard every sob trapped inside the walls, felt each one as if it had been torn from his own chest.

Roberta reached out to the picture of the smiling child, touched her fingertips to the face. McKay moved his hand from her shoulder, down her arm, until his fingers circled her slender wrist.

‘It’s maybe best you don’t touch anything,’ he said. ‘For when the police come.’

Then Roberta’s legs buckled and she collapsed to her knees beside the bed. She reached for her husband’s still hand, buried her face in the blanket, close to where his legs should have been. McKay watched as her shoulders juddered, listened as her keening was smothered by the bedclothes. The display of grief quietly horrified him, even though his rational mind knew hers was a natural and inevitable reaction. But his irrational mind, that wild part of him, clamoured, asking, what about me? What about me? What about us?

McKay kept his silence for a time before touching her shoulder once more and saying, ‘I’ll make the phone calls.’

He left her to her wailing and exited into the hall.

Such a grand place. Mr Garrick had built it for his new wife when they first married seven years ago. Six bedrooms, half of them with bathrooms, three receptions, a large garage that held Mr Garrick’s modest collection of classic cars. An acre of sweeping lawns and flower beds. Enough money to pay for a gardener and cleaner to look after it all.

They should have had a long and happy life together. But that was not God’s will, Mr Garrick had once said after he and Reverend McKay had prayed together.

God had no part in it, McKay had almost said. But he held his tongue.

McKay seldom thought of God any more, unless he was writing a sermon or taking a service. Reverend Peter McKay had ceased to believe in God some months ago. Everything since had been play-acting, as much out of pity for the parishioners as a desire to keep his job.

No God. No sin. No heaven. No hell.

Reverend Peter McKay knew these things as certainly as he knew his own name.

He went to the telephone on the hall table, picked up the handset, and dialled.

3

Flanagan stood at the kitchen sink, a mug of coffee in one hand, looking out over the garden. Rain dotted the window, a lacklustre shower that had darkened the sky as she watched. Behind her, Alistair sat at the table with Ruth and Eli, telling them to eat their breakfast, they’d be late. Flanagan had showered and dressed an hour ago; she had her holster attached to her belt, the Glock 17 snug inside, hidden beneath her jacket, her bag packed and ready for the day. Still half an hour before she needed to go.

Mornings had been like this for months now. She rising early, still tired, her night’s sleep fractured by Alistair’s gasping and clutching. A year had passed since the Devine brothers had invaded their home, since one of them had plunged a blade into her husband’s flank. A year since she had pressed wadded-up bedding against the wound, begging him not to die.

He blamed her. She brought this upon their family. He hadn’t said so after that first night in the hospital, but she was certain he still believed it. Once, he had asked her to think about getting out of the force. Or at least leaving the front line, taking an admin role. Her reaction had been angry enough that he had never asked again.

Last night had been bad. Flanagan had lain silent, pretending to sleep as Alistair wept in the darkness. Choked, frightened
sobs. Eventually, he had got up and left the room. She had heard the faint babble of the television from downstairs. At some point she had fallen asleep, only to be disturbed by the bed rocking as he got back in. He lay with his back to her. She rolled over and brought her body to his, her chest against his shoulders. He stiffened as she reached over and her hand sought his.

‘You don’t have to,’ he said, his voice shocking her in the quiet.

‘Have to what?’ she asked.

‘Pretend,’ he said. ‘With the children, maybe. But not with me.’

‘I don’t . . .’

Words hung beyond the reach of her tongue. Anger rose in her, but the root of his bitterness remained so veiled that she could form no argument against it. Instead, she rolled over and crept to her cold edge of the bed. She did not sleep again, rose with the sun, and set about preparing for another weary day.

So now she stood apart from them, as she did more often every day. Her husband and children at the table, she at the window, no longer even trying to make conversation with her family. An intruder in her own home, just as those boys had been.

Alistair’s voice cracked her isolation. She turned her head and said, ‘What?’

‘Your phone,’ he said, a tired sigh carrying the words.

Her mobile vibrated on the table, the screen lighting up.

She crossed from the sink and lifted it. Detective Superintendent Purdy, the display said.

Purdy had only a fortnight left on the job, retirement bearing down on him like a tidal wave. He had confided in Flanagan that although it had seemed like a good idea a year ago when
he’d first started making plans, the reality of it, the long smear of years ahead, now terrified him.

Flanagan thumbed the touchscreen. ‘Yes?’

‘Ah, good,’ Purdy said. ‘I wanted to catch you before you left for the station. There’s been a sudden death in Morganstown. The sergeant at the scene reckons suicide, so—’

‘So you thought of me,’ Flanagan said. ‘Thanks a million.’

Flanagan hated suicides. In most cases, the minimum of investigation was needed, but the family would be devastated. Few grieve harder than the loved ones of someone who has taken their own life. They’d be coming at her with questions she could never answer.

‘You’re closer to Morganstown than you are to Lisburn,’ Purdy said, ‘so you can go straight there.’

‘I’ll leave now,’ she said.

‘Take your time. From what the sergeant said, it looks pretty straightforward. You remember that road accident about six months ago? The car dealer?’

Yes, Flanagan remembered. The owner of Garrick Motors, a large used car dealership that occupied a sprawling site on the far side of Morganstown. He had been badly burned, lost both of his legs, if Flanagan recalled correctly. A popular churchgoing couple, good Christians both. Close friends with one of the local unionist politicians. The community had rallied around them. After all, Mr Garrick had contributed much to the area over the years.

‘The wife found him this morning,’ Purdy continued. ‘She phoned the minister at her church first. He went to the house, then he called it in. The FMO’s on scene already.’

Flanagan knew the steps by heart. When a sudden death was reported, a sergeant had to attend to make an initial assessment. Was it natural? Had the deceased been ill? Was it suspicious? If the latter, including a suicide, the scene would be locked down, the Forensic Medical Officer summoned, and an Investigating Officer appointed.

Today, it was Flanagan’s turn.

‘What’s the address?’ she asked, pulling the notebook from her bag. She held the phone between her ear and shoulder as she uncapped the pen and scribbled it down.

Alistair looked up at her from his plate of buttered toast. Ruth and Eli kicked each other under the table, giggling.

‘I can be there in ten minutes.’ Flanagan stuffed the notebook back into her bag, then hoisted the bag over her shoulder. ‘I’ll call DS Murray on the way.’

She was halfway to Morganstown, trees whipping past her Volkswagen Golf, when she realised she hadn’t said goodbye to her husband or children.

A uniformed constable opened the door to Flanagan. A beautiful house, inside and out, at the end of a sweeping drive. Not long built, by the look of it, and finished with enough taste to prevent its grandeur straying into vulgarity.

‘Ma’am,’ the constable said when Flanagan showed her warrant card. ‘In the back.’

He looked pale. Flanagan wondered if it was his first sudden death. At least the next of kin had found the body, and the constable had been spared delivering the death notice. Flanagan remembered the first time she’d been given that duty, calling at
the home of a middle-aged couple whose son had lost control of his new car. Everyone has to do it some time, the senior officer had said, might as well get it out of the way. Even thinking about it now soured Flanagan’s stomach, and she had done dozens more since then.

She stepped into the hall, past the young officer. ‘Where’s the sergeant?’ she asked.

Wooden floors. A staircase with polished banisters rose up to a gallery on the first floor, cutting the hallway in two. Art on the walls, mostly originals, a few prints. Framed scripture verses. A large bible ostentatiously open on the hall table.

Serious money, here, Flanagan thought. So much money there was no need for another penny, but still you couldn’t help but make more. And yet it didn’t save Mr Garrick in the end.

‘In the living room,’ the constable said, ‘with the deceased’s wife.’

Flanagan looked to her right, through open double doors into a large living room. A stone fireplace built to look centuries old. No television in this room, but a top end hi-fi separates system was stacked in a cabinet, high quality speakers at either end of the far wall. A suite of luxurious couches and armchairs at the centre, all arranged to face each other. The widow, Mrs Garrick, red-eyed and slack-faced sitting with a man whom Flanagan assumed to be the clergyman, even though he wore no collar. Her hands were clasped in his. The other uniformed officer sat opposite them: a female sergeant she recognised but whose name Flanagan could not recall.

She got up from the couch, and said, ‘Ma’am.’ She carried a clipboard, held it out to Flanagan.

‘Are you my Log Officer?’ Flanagan asked, keeping her voice respectfully low.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Have you done this before, Sergeant . . .?’

‘Carson,’ the sergeant said. ‘A few times. I know the drill.’

‘Good,’ Flanagan said, taking the offered pen. She saw Dr Phelan Barr’s signature already scrawled on the 38/15 form. She signed beneath and handed the pen back. ‘DS Murray’s on the way. When he arrives, send him back, and I’ll come and speak with Mrs Garrick. Then I want you on the door to the room, understood?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Is there a clear path from the door to the body?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Okay, make sure anyone you let in knows to stick to that.’

Flanagan looked over Sergeant Carson’s shoulder to see Mrs Garrick and the rector watching from their place on the opposite couch. Flanagan nodded to them each in turn. ‘I’ll be with you in a few minutes,’ she said.

She walked along the hallway to the right of the staircase. On the other side, she saw the dining room with its twelve-seater table, and the kitchen, all white gloss and black granite. And here what had once been another reception room but now was a makeshift care unit.

The Forensic Medical Officer, Dr Barr, stood over the corpse, writing on a notepad. Flanagan looked from him to the bed and the scarred ruin of a man beneath the sheets. She let a little air out of her lungs as she always did at the sight of a body. A tic she had borrowed from DSI Purdy.