Those We Left Behind (11 page)

Flanagan sat on an armchair in the Rolstons’ living room, Mrs Rolston on the couch, a tissue pressed to her mouth, her eyes red. Beside her, Daniel Rolston, a pimply boy, still carrying puppy fat. The kind of boy who got bullied at school, who was picked last for sports. He had been staying with an aunt and uncle since yesterday. They had driven him over and now waited in the kitchen.

Only two days since Flanagan had last been in this room. It had seemed darker, smaller then. Now the sun shone through the window, glinting off china and picture frames. But the sunlight did not touch the Rolstons, as if averting its gaze in shame.

‘Have you charged them yet?’ Mrs Rolston asked.

‘No,’ Flanagan said. ‘We have the confession from Ciaran, but we can’t take it at face value. Confessions from children are always treated with caution. A child in custody will say almost anything to get out. We have to be certain before the charge is made.’

Daniel spoke, then. ‘It wasn’t Ciaran,’ he said. ‘It was Thomas.’

Flanagan paused, then asked, ‘Why do you think that, Daniel?’

‘Because Ciaran’s my friend. Thomas is the mean one.’

Mrs Rolston took Daniel’s hand. ‘Ciaran hasn’t got a school placement yet,’ she said. ‘Thomas has to take a bus across town for his school, so there were about forty minutes or so on school days when Ciaran and Daniel were alone together. They got to be pals, sort of, as much as anyone can be friends with a boy like Ciaran.’ She looked directly at Flanagan, lowered her voice as if her son wasn’t sitting right beside her. ‘Daniel doesn’t have many friends.’

‘Thomas used to hurt me,’ Daniel said. ‘I told Mum and Dad, but Mum didn’t believe me.’

Mrs Rolston squeezed his fingers between hers. ‘I thought it was just boys being boys. You know how rough they play. David gave the boys a talking-to, all three of them, told them to go easy.’

Daniel pulled his hand away. ‘You should’ve believed me.’

Mrs Rolston seemed to retreat into herself as she dropped her gaze to the crumpled tissue in her lap. ‘It was David wanted to foster children, not me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t have any more after Daniel, so David wanted to take in the ones who needed help, as he put it. He was an orphan himself, you see. He thought he was doing good. They were decent kids at heart, he said, they just needed a bit of care. He was trying to help Thomas with his schoolwork, telling him he could make something of himself. And look what that got him.’

When she was sure Mrs Rolston had finished, Flanagan leafed through her notes and said, ‘I have a difficult question to put to you. I have to warn you both, you’ll find this upsetting.’

Mrs Rolston looked up from her tissue. Daniel kept his stare fixed on the wall somewhere over Flanagan’s shoulder.

‘The Devine brothers have made an accusation against Mr Rolston.’

‘What kind of accusation?’

Flanagan swallowed. ‘They have alleged that Mr Rolston sexually abused Thomas Devine repeatedly over the three months leading up to the killing.’

Fresh tears welled in Mrs Rolston’s eyes before rolling down her pale cheeks. ‘The bastards,’ she said, her voice quivering in her chest. ‘Those evil little bastards.’

Her hands began to shake.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Rolston, I understand how difficult this is, but I have to ask. Had you any knowledge or suspicion that your husband might have abused Thomas?’

Mrs Rolston shook her head. ‘How can you say that?’

‘I have to ask the question, however hard it is.’

‘I’d like you to leave now.’

Flanagan turned to the boy. ‘Daniel, have you ever seen or heard anything like this? Had your father ever behaved inappropriately towards you?’

‘Get out,’ Mrs Rolston said as she stood.

‘Daniel?’

Daniel stared straight ahead.

‘Get out of my house,’ Mrs Rolston said, her voice rising in pitch and volume with each word, her finger pointing to the door.

‘Please, Mrs Rolston, I have no choice but to follow this line—’

‘Get the fuck out of my house!’

The force of Mrs Rolston’s cry jangled in Flanagan’s ears.

Footsteps in the hall, then the door opened, and the uncle looked through. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

‘Get this bitch out of my house,’ Mrs Rolston shouted, her voice shrill and piercing. ‘Get her out of my fucking house right now!’

‘It’s all right,’ Flanagan said, packing away her notebook and pen. ‘We can do this another time. Thank you.’

She looked no one in the eye as she left the room, hurried along the hall, and exited the house. Once inside her car, she closed her eyes and willed herself to be calm.

The social worker – a different one from yesterday and the day before – looked bored as she sat beside Ciaran in the interview room. She had contributed almost nothing to the interview save for the occasional nudge or whisper in the boy’s ear.

Flanagan had stacked up hour after hour in this room. She’d worked Ciaran all day yesterday, and more today. The vague questions narrowing down until they reached the specifics of the act. Nothing changed. Not a single variation in the answers. It bothered her that neither he nor Thomas had misremembered a single detail the way most people would under pressure.

It was too good.

‘I spoke with Mrs Rolston and her son earlier today,’ Flanagan said. ‘Mrs Rolston denied any knowledge or suspicion of her husband ever abusing your brother. Do you have anything to say to that, Ciaran?’

He shook his head.

‘For the record, the detained person responded in the negative. Ciaran, I also spoke by telephone with three boys the Rolstons fostered over the years. They’re grown-ups now. I asked all of them if Mr Rolston had ever sexually abused them. All of them said no. In fact, all three of them were very shocked at the suggestion. They all said Mr Rolston had been very kind to them. I’m going to speak with as many boys the Rolstons fostered as I can. I have to tell you, I expect their responses to be similar. Do you have any comment to make?’

Again, Ciaran shook his head.

‘The detained person has responded in the negative. Ciaran, please think very carefully about what you’re accusing Mr Rolston of. You have to think about how much more hurt this is going to cause his family. Remember we talked about the truth? The truth is the best thing for everybody – for you, for Thomas, for Daniel, for Mrs Rolston. If Mr Rolston did those things to Thomas, then that’s what you have to tell me, and the court when it comes to trial. But if he didn’t, Ciaran, please don’t lie about it.’

‘He did do it to Thomas,’ Ciaran said. ‘I heard him. That’s why I had to kill him. To make it stop.’

‘Why didn’t you tell anyone before that? You could’ve told your case worker. A teacher at school. The police. Anyone.’

‘No one would believe us,’ Ciaran said.

‘They might have,’ Flanagan said. ‘Then you wouldn’t have had to hurt Mr Rolston. You wouldn’t be here now.’

‘I had to kill him,’ Ciaran said, staring hard at Flanagan. ‘For Thomas.’

‘So?’ Flanagan asked as DCI Purdy shut off the video.

DI Mark Speers studied his own notes across the table. He had logged hours of interviews with Thomas Devine, he and Flanagan reporting back to Purdy. Newspapers lay scattered over the surface of the table, the Sunday rags, and Monday dailies. And not just the local Belfast papers. There was the
Sun
, the
Mirror
, the
Daily Mail
. Glaring headlines about the barbaric killing of a decent man by the children in his care. The Devine brothers hadn’t been named, though the reporters surely knew who was in custody, and Flanagan hoped that would remain the case.

‘Apart from what the Rolston boy told you,’ Purdy said, ‘we’ve nothing to contradict Ciaran’s confession. You’ve both compared notes. Their stories match up. Every last detail. Tell me what you’re thinking.’

Flanagan sat back in her chair and exhaled. She brought her fingertips to her temples, massaged them, as if the pressure would solidify her thoughts into a cogent argument.

‘I’m just not sure,’ she said. ‘The time I’ve spent with Ciaran. He doesn’t seem like the kind of boy who could do this. Thomas, on the other hand . . .’

Speers looked up from his notepad. A few years older than Flanagan, a clear and handsome face. He enjoyed being a cop, acted as if he was constantly on camera in some TV drama.

‘Thomas is a cold one, all right,’ he said. ‘But he hasn’t put a foot wrong since he was brought in, from the First Account on. I’ve used the cognitive method throughout, narrowing it right down, the information funnel, just like you and me were trained to do. Thomas has been rock solid all the way. From what you’ve reported, so has Ciaran. The events, as far as we can ascertain, run like this: Ciaran goes upstairs to the master bedroom, finds Thomas cornered there by Mr Rolston. Ciaran grabs the bookend, sets about Mr Rolston with it. Thomas tries to stop him, but Ciaran’s too far gone, he’s lost control. The only person who’s saying different is a kid who was miles away when it happened. I don’t know how else to come at it. Do you?’

‘If I can keep working with Ciaran,’ Flanagan said, ‘see if I can get him to open up. I don’t mean on record, we don’t need the social worker there. I mean talk to him alone, as a friend, see if I can get him to—’

Purdy interrupted. ‘We’ve had them coming up on forty-eight hours without a charge. That’s pushing things as it is. It may be a murder case, but they’re still children. If I go to the superintendent and ask for another extension, you know damn well he’s going to tell me to shit or get off the pot.’

‘But, sir, you can try,’ Flanagan said. ‘I know another twenty-four hours is a lot to ask for when we’re dealing with kids, but Christ, if we get this wrong, it’s the rest of their lives we’re talking about.’

Purdy leaned forward, rested his chin on his palm. ‘All right, fuck it. I’ll give it a go.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But I’ll tell you now,’ Purdy said. ‘You’re wrong on this one. Ciaran Devine is the killer.’

CIARAN HAS BEEN
waiting outside the hostel for ten minutes already. His stomach is all fluttery inside. Nerves and joy, joy and nerves. As the minutes grind past, the nerves turn to fear. Has Thomas forgotten? Ciaran chews his thumbnail. Of course Thomas hasn’t forgotten. Thomas never forgets anything.

Almost another five minutes go by before the red car pulls in from the main road. Ciaran feels the grin break on his face, a laugh rising up all bubbly from his belly. He lifts a hand and waves. Thomas does not wave back. He’s too busy turning the car.

Ciaran opens the passenger door and lowers himself into the seat. Thomas leans across, puts a hand around Ciaran’s neck, draws him closer and plants a kiss on his cheek.

‘Newcastle,’ Thomas says. ‘Will that do?’

‘Yeah,’ Ciaran says. He can’t keep the laughter from his voice.

Newcastle, not far from where they lived in those last good days. County Down, he thinks. Ciaran hasn’t been back since. He knows there’s a place in England with the same name, but Newcastle here is different with its long beach and rolling waves.

‘It’s a bit of a drive, but we’ve got all day.’

Thomas puts the car in gear and sets off. Soon they are heading out of the city, going south, buildings left behind, green all around.

Ciaran notices the torn skin on Thomas’s knuckles.

He says nothing.

DANIEL ARRIVED AT
the office five minutes late. Melanie stood at her door, waiting for him, the smile on her lips looking like it had been fixed there since the previous morning. She stood back and allowed him to enter.

Beside the desk sat Andrew Hanna, the regional manager. Daniel recognised him from his picture in the company newsletter. Hanna stood and extended a hand. Daniel shook it.

‘Take a wee seat,’ Melanie said.

Daniel did so, waited for her to do the same.

When everyone was in place, Melanie said, ‘So.’

She looked towards Hanna, who looked at Daniel.

Hanna said, ‘Daniel, we’re letting you go.’

Just like that. No preamble. No soft landing.

Daniel cleared his throat, said, ‘Okay.’

‘I assume you know why,’ Hanna said. ‘But I’ll explain anyway. We received a complaint early this morning that you had, for whatever reason, used our network and databases to find personal information on someone and then harass them.’

‘I didn’t harass anybody,’ Daniel said. ‘I just knocked on her door to—’

Melanie spoke now, that smile still on her lips. ‘And one of your colleagues tells me you printed out this information here in the office, then took it home with you. By the terms of your wee contract, that’s an immediate dismissal. Do you have anything to say for yourself?’

‘Just one thing,’ Daniel said. ‘Please, for the love of God, stop smiling.’

She did, for a moment.

‘And stop calling everything wee. It’s not a wee contract. It’s fifteen pages, for Christ’s sake.’

Hanna pushed an envelope across the desk. ‘Here you go. You’ll be paid up to the end of the month, which I’m sure you’ll agree is more than fair under the circumstances. Now, if you’ve no more questions . . .’

Daniel stood and left the office without lifting the envelope. At the Xerox machine he saw Chris Greely, a paper cup full of water in his hand, waiting for a printout. Greely saw him approach, smiled, said, ‘You off, then?’

Daniel slapped the cup from Greely’s hand, sent water splashing across the copier. He felt a surge of pleasure as he seized Greely’s throat, pushed him back against the wall, forced his knuckles in under his chin, squeezing the windpipe. Greely’s eyes bulged, his mouth opening and closing. Gasps around the office. A hand on Daniel’s shoulder. He turned his head to see Hanna. Whatever Hanna saw in Daniel’s eyes was enough to convince him to take his hand away.

He turned back to Greely. ‘I’ll be back for you,’ Daniel said. ‘Might be here, might be somewhere else. Might be today, might be some other day. But I promise I’ll get you.’

Daniel let go and Greely fell to the floor. Colleagues rushed to help him, giving Daniel fearful glances. Daniel supposed he should have felt ashamed, embarrassed, possibly regretful. Instead, he felt taller than he ever had.

He took the lift down to the ground floor, exited the building, and walked the hundred yards or so to the bus stop. When the police car rounded the corner he knew they were coming for him, and he was glad.