Those We Left Behind (14 page)

CIARAN COUNTS THE
money out onto the bed. Fourteen pounds and eighty-seven pence. Thomas gave him some yesterday. Told him he could buy anything he wanted.

Ciaran wants a bacon sandwich.

The shopping centre is just across the road. Two minutes’ walk. Ciaran can do that. There’s a café at the Marks & Spencer store. He can get a cup of milky tea and a bacon sandwich. Or he could stay here, hungry and alone. Thomas is working all day, so he can’t come and take Ciaran out in his car. Ciaran sits on the bed beside the money and looks around the room. Can he sit here all day? If he has to, then yes.

But he doesn’t have to. Ciaran can do what he wants.

That idea is so shiny bright in his mind he should say it out loud.

‘I can do what I want.’

A whisper, really, but true all the same.

Ciaran doesn’t know how much a bacon sandwich and a cup of milky tea costs, but he thinks fourteen pounds will be enough. He stands, gathers the money up, and stuffs it into his pocket. Downstairs, he sees Mr Wheatley at his office door.

‘You going out?’ he asks.

‘Yeah,’ Ciaran says.

‘Anywhere interesting?’

Ciaran points. ‘Across the road. To buy food.’

‘I see.’ Mr Wheatley nods. ‘Are you okay on your own? I can come with you, if you like.’

‘I can go on my own,’ Ciaran says. He goes to leave, then thinks of something important to say to Mr Wheatley. He turns back. ‘I can do what I want.’

Mr Wheatley smiles. ‘That’s right. Within reason.’

Ciaran remembers what to do at the crossings. Press the button, wait for the green man. Soon the chitter-chatter racket of the shopping centre is all around him. Parents and children. Whole families, and people on their own. Just like him.

Ciaran is terrified. There’s too much noisy noise. Too many people, too close to him. His hands shake so he keeps them in his pockets. His legs feel like they can’t hold him upright. He keeps walking just to keep from falling over. Paula told him the Marks & Spencer was at the far end. Not far at all if he just keeps moving.

There, the café is an island in front of the store, tables and chairs surrounding a counter. Like the canteen at Hydebank. Ciaran knows how to do this. He goes to the counter, takes a tray, puts a plate on it. The bacon sandwiches are already made, wrapped in plastic. He brings it to the lady at the till. She takes the sandwich, says she’s going to heat it for him. With a quiver in his voice that he can’t hide, he asks her for a cup of tea. Lots of milk. She looks at him strangely. She knows he doesn’t belong here. He swallows. Remembers he can be here, can buy this food, if he so chooses.

‘I can do what I want,’ he says.

The lady looks at him for a moment, then smiles an uncertain smile. Ciaran realises she’s afraid of him. He doesn’t like how that feels.

The sandwich and the tea cost much less than fourteen pounds. The lady gives Ciaran his change, and he finds a free table. It feels like all the other people are watching him. He knows it isn’t true, but he feels it anyway. His hands are shaking so much he almost drops the sandwich as he brings it to his mouth. It tastes good. Tea spills over the rim as he lifts the cup. The cup rattles in the saucer when he puts it back down.

A man across the way, a man Ciaran doesn’t know at all, asks, ‘Rough night, was it?’

The man winks. Ciaran doesn’t know why this man is talking to him. He does not reply, turns his gaze away. He hears the man say something about bloody foreigners to the lady beside him.

Ciaran chews and sips, the fear subsiding a little, until someone sits down in the chair across the table.

‘Hello Ciaran,’ Daniel Rolston says.

Ciaran stops chewing, a wad of bread and bacon on his tongue. Every part of him jingly-jangles, like he wants to run or hit out or cry. Daniel has a cut beneath his right eye. The flesh is red and swollen. The cut glistens with new blood. Some of it is smeared around Daniel’s cheek.

‘Are you looking at this?’ Daniel asks.

Ciaran looks away.

‘My girlfriend did it. My own fault, if I’m honest. I’ve been really shitty to her this last while. She was right to leave me. Go on and eat your breakfast.’

Ciaran swallows the food in his mouth. He doesn’t want any more.

‘Where’s your brother?’ Daniel asks. ‘I was watching for the both of you from the car park across the road. I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come out on your own. But here you are.’

Ciaran wonders if he could get up and leave. But maybe Daniel would start shouting. Then Ciaran would have to run. He stays in his seat.

‘I asked you a question, Ciaran. Where’s your brother?’

‘At work,’ Ciaran says.

‘I see. I got fired from my job yesterday. It’s been a pretty fucking awful week all round. Pretty fucking shitty. And how have you been?’

Daniel’s eyes glisten, teardrops ready to fall from them. Ciaran feels like he should answer, but he doesn’t know what to say.

‘You were never very chatty, were you? Even when we got to be friends. Do you remember? You used to come to my room without Thomas, before he got home from school, and we’d hang out. Just you and me. You didn’t say much, but you never hurt me. Not like Thomas did.’

Ciaran remembers. Thomas was going to a different school, and he had to take two buses to get back to the Rolstons’ house. They were still trying to find a space for Ciaran, so he had to stay at home. Forty-five minutes of every weekday, it was just Daniel and Ciaran. Daniel let Ciaran use his PlayStation, though he wasn’t very good at it. Daniel helped him.

When Ciaran asked Thomas not to hurt Daniel any more, Thomas bit him hard. He didn’t ask again.

‘You know,’ Daniel says, ‘I think that’s why it happened. I think Thomas saw you and me were getting to be friends, and he couldn’t stand it. He thought I’d take you away from him. So he had to do something.’

Ciaran wants to go. He gathers things onto his tray, starts to rise. Daniel takes his wrist. His hand is harder and stronger than Ciaran thought it would be.

‘Sit down, Ciaran.’

‘I want to go back to the hostel,’ Ciaran says.

‘Sit down, now, or I will beat the shit out of you right here in front of these people.’

‘I can do what I want,’ Ciaran says.

Daniel pulls Ciaran’s arm, takes his balance, making him stumble into the table. Tea slops over the rim of the cup.

‘Sit. The fuck. Down.’

Ciaran does as he’s told. Like a good boy.

‘Now, where was I?’ Daniel keeps hold of Ciaran’s wrist. ‘Oh yes. It was the bit about you killing my father. Except you didn’t, did you? It was Thomas. Then the both of you cooked up this story about my father abusing your brother. He talked you into saying you did it. You took the blame for him so he wouldn’t have to spend so long inside. Isn’t that right?’

‘No,’ Ciaran says, his voice a wet whisper in his throat.

‘That’s what happened. Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not after all this time. Tell me Thomas did it.’ He squeezes Ciaran’s wrist. ‘Tell me.’

‘No.’

Daniel squeezes harder, hurting now. Tears rolling. ‘It was never you. It was always him. And my dad never touched him. You know my mum killed herself?’

‘My mum died too,’ Ciaran says, his gaze fixed on Daniel’s hand.

Daniel’s fingers relax as he weeps. Tears drop fat and heavy on the table. His shoulders judder. He whines, a high desperate sound that comes from somewhere down inside him.

People look. Ciaran’s face burns.

‘You destroyed us, you and your brother. My whole family. Thomas might as well have killed all three of us.’

‘It wasn’t Thomas,’ Ciaran says.

‘Stop it!’ Daniel slaps the table. Cutlery rattles. More tea spills. ‘Just fucking stop it. The one thing in the world you could do to help me is tell the truth, and you won’t even give me that, will you? Just the fucking truth.’

Ciaran wants to tell Daniel so many things, but he doesn’t know how.

‘I’m sorry,’ Ciaran says.

‘Are you? Then tell me the truth.’

Ciaran goes to speak, but he hears someone say his name. He looks around.

Thomas, alone in the crowd, staring at him from across the barrier that separates the café from the rest of the shopping centre.

‘What’s going on?’ Thomas asks.

DANIEL TURNED HIS
head and saw him through the tears.

Thomas Devine, big as life. Just standing there as if he had every right to live and breathe among human beings. Daniel let go of Ciaran’s wrist. Saw the fear on the younger man’s face.

Daniel stood, the chair scraping back and rattling into the others behind.

‘Ciaran, come with me,’ Thomas said.

Ciaran didn’t hesitate. At his brother’s word, he left the table, followed the barrier to the gap, and went to Thomas’s side. Thomas took his arm and led him away.

‘Wait,’ Daniel said. They didn’t. ‘Wait.’

He followed them as Thomas quickened his pace, pulling Ciaran behind him.

‘Stop,’ Daniel called. ‘Fucking stop.’

He reached out, took Ciaran’s free arm, planted his feet on the tiled floor. Stretched Ciaran between them. Thomas halted, turned, said, ‘Let go.’

‘No,’ Daniel said. ‘You can’t run away from me.’

‘Let go of my brother. Now. Please.’

Daniel jerked Ciaran’s arm, pulling him away from Thomas. He noticed the security guard’s attention on him, saw the uniformed man lift a walkie-talkie to his mouth.

Thomas stood quite still, glaring back at Daniel. ‘I’ll ask you one more time. Let him go.’

‘Not until you—’

Thomas was quick, covering the ground between them in a blink, his hand on Daniel’s, prising the fingers loose. Almost eye to eye. So close Daniel could smell him. And, oh, he remembered that smell.

Daniel could recall little of it later on when his mind had cleared. Only the first impulse to swing, the deep savage pleasure of his fist connecting with Thomas’s cheek. He pieced it together eventually, pulling fragments of memory from the confusion.

The first blow sent Thomas staggering, then Daniel was swinging at air, one fist following the other in meaningless arcs. Ciaran called something, Daniel couldn’t tell what through the rushing in his ears. Another punch landed and put Thomas on the floor, his lip bleeding. Daniel saw Thomas shake his head, signalling something to Ciaran.

His hands outstretched, his teeth bared, a howl escaping his mouth, Daniel was about to fall on Thomas when the security guards rushed him, one at each arm, dragging him away. Ciaran went to Thomas’s side, helped him to his feet. Daniel saw the hate in Thomas’s eyes as the brothers marched towards the exit.

‘You can’t run away from me for ever,’ Daniel called after them. ‘I’ll be back. I’ll get the truth from you. I swear on my father’s grave I will.’

One of the guards talked into his radio handset, something about the police.

Daniel threw his weight to one side, then the other. The guard who’d asked for the police tripped over his own feet, tumbled onto his back. The other guard put his arm up to shield himself from the swing of Daniel’s free hand, then Daniel was spinning in clear air.

He regained his balance and ran, blindly through the crowd at first, then towards the far exit. The guards called from behind but Daniel kept going, the people parting before him.

He kept running until the shopping centre was lost around the bend in the road, until his lungs ached, until his legs could carry him no further. Then he staggered to the nearest wall, leaned against it as he vomited up the last watery contents of his stomach.

CIARAN KNOWS THOMAS
is angry with him even though it isn’t his fault. He glows with it, like the anger is burning up his insides. His breathing is hard, a ragged sound trapped in the car with them. As Thomas presses a tissue to his bleeding lip he keeps looking out through the windows, around the car park, as if searching for Daniel. All jerky and fidgety, hands ready to lash out.

‘What happened?’ Thomas asks.

‘I was having breakfast,’ Ciaran says. ‘You said you were working, and I didn’t want to sit in the hostel all day.’

‘I don’t start till eleven. I called at the hostel and that manager told me you were over here. What was Daniel doing there?’

‘I don’t know. He just sat down in front of me.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He talked about us. About what happened to Mr Rolston.’

Thomas’s voice is quiet and brittle, words like broken glass. ‘What about it?’

‘He wanted me to say I didn’t do it.’

‘And?’

‘I told him it was me.’

‘Good boy.’ Thomas reaches across and squeezes Ciaran’s shoulder. His fingers are hard and sharp like needles. ‘Good boy.’

‘He said his mum killed herself. Just like our mum.’

‘The drugs killed our mum. Anyway, that’s nothing to do with us.’

‘I told him I was sorry,’ Ciaran says, expecting more anger from Thomas, but there is none. ‘I don’t think he noticed, but I said it.’

‘There’s some things you can’t apologise for.’

Ciaran already knows that. Doesn’t mean he can’t try, but he keeps that thought to himself.

‘I never really thought about it before,’ Ciaran says. ‘Not while we were inside. Not until now.’

‘Thought about what?’ Thomas asks.

‘About the ones we left behind. Daniel. Mrs Rolston. What we did to Mr Rolston, we did it to them too. Just because we left them behind, it doesn’t mean we didn’t hurt them too.’

Ciaran feels a sudden terror for what Thomas will do.

He closes his eyes and waits for teeth on his skin.

Instead, Thomas squeezes Ciaran’s shoulder once more. ‘It’s all right. No real harm done. But here’s the question.’

Ciaran opens his eyes, swallows, and asks, ‘What?’

‘What do we do about Daniel?’ Thomas asks.

FLANAGAN FOUND DCI
Conn in his office at Ladas Drive station. Alistair had wanted the family to go out together, maybe to the zoo, or a drive to Bangor, but she had told him she had paperwork to catch up on. Guilt at the lie had felt like needles in her skin, but she told it anyway.

Conn looked up from his computer keyboard. Anger flashed on his face for a moment before he caught it, masked it.

‘Serena,’ he said. ‘What brings you here on a Saturday morning?’

She lingered in the doorway. ‘I just wondered how the Walker case was going.’

‘It’s more or less wrapped up,’ he said, looking at his computer monitor. ‘Just waiting for the coroner to put a bow on it, then I’m all done.’

‘Did you talk to Julie?’

Conn exhaled through his nose. ‘We took a statement, yes.’

‘I mean, did you interview her?’

‘We took a statement,’ Conn repeated, his voice hardening.

Flanagan felt the building anger radiate from him. She spoke slowly, keeping her tone light and respectful. ‘What about the boyfriend?’

‘We also took a brief statement from him, even though it wasn’t really necessary.’

She stepped into the room, approached his desk. ‘Could I take a look at them?’

‘Why?’

‘Just to satisfy my curiosity.’

Conn sat back, the muscles in his jaw bunching as he thought. Eventually, he opened the file on his desk, removed four printed A4 pages, and passed them across. Flanagan took them, said thank you, and began to read.

Three pages for Julie’s statement. Less than half a page for Barry Timmons. More or less what she’d already heard. Julie Walker woken by the single shot, finding her mother and father dead, calling 999. Barry Timmons woken in the early hours by a phone call from his distressed girlfriend. Flanagan handed the pages back.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Listen, would you mind if I had a chat with them?’

He looked up from the pages. ‘Yes, I would bloody mind.’

‘I’d make it quick. Treat it as a follow-up to the statements, nothing more.’

Conn got to his feet, rested his knuckles on the desk as he leaned towards her. ‘Let me make this very clear. You will not talk to Julie Walker or Barry Timmons. If you do, I’ll have the ACC on you so fast your head will spin.’ His expression softened a fraction. ‘Look, I know the Walkers were friends of yours, and you’re upset at what happened, but you can’t let that push you into making an accusation with nothing to back it up.’

Flanagan nodded, smiled, and left the office.

By the time she got to her car, she had made her decision.

Barry Timmons was a lecturer at Queen’s University and rented a house nearby. Flanagan guessed Julie would stay with him while her home remained a crime scene. She parked her Golf opposite the Queen’s Film Theatre, in the shadow of the Lanyon building, and walked the short distance to University Street with its rows of terraced houses. Most of them bore To Let signs, waiting for the influx of students that would come with the new academic year. The area felt ghostly quiet without the bustle of students, as if an evacuation had taken place.

She found Barry’s house close to the University Road end, tidier than the other properties along this street, the front door and window frames newly painted, wooden venetian blinds behind the glass. A leafy green pot plant on the sill of the living room window.

Flanagan knocked and waited.

She was not here officially, she thought, but as a friend. If she wanted to show her support for the orphaned daughter of a couple she had grown close to, then DCI Conn could have nothing to say about it.

No answer. She knocked again.

A sickly relief accompanied the realisation that no one was home. What was she doing here? What good could she do? Conn would be furious, as would the Assistant Chief Constable, not to mention DSI Purdy. Flanagan imagined being called into his office on Monday morning, the bollocking he would give her.

‘All right,’ she said, and turned away from the door, heading back to University Road. Maybe if she got back home to Moira in time, the day wouldn’t be wasted. She and Alistair could still get out somewhere with the kids.

Across University Road, through the stream of traffic headed for the city centre, she saw Julie Walker and Barry Timmons seated at the window of a café. Flanagan stood still on the pavement and watched for a few moments. Deep in conversation, their heads close together.

Leave them be, Flanagan thought. Go home to your family.

Then she thought of Penny Walker and a pillow held tight to her face.

Flanagan went to the pedestrian crossing, waited for the green man, keeping the couple in her sight. She crossed the road, walked towards the café. Julie and Barry were oblivious to anything but whatever it was they discussed. Flanagan stood no more than six feet away, only a pane of glass between her and them. They did not notice her attention as they talked.

Or rather, Julie talked.

Her forefinger extended, punctuating her words, stabbing the air inches from Barry’s face. He wept, Flanagan saw, his cheeks wet with tears. Rocking back and forth slightly, a gentle self-comforting motion. Contained rage on Julie’s face.

Barry went to say something, but Julie’s finger prodded at his chest, her anger reaching a new height. She must have spoken too loudly, because now she lifted her head, looked around the café to make sure no one heard, then glanced out of the window.

She saw Flanagan, and the fury drained from her face, replaced by fear. Barry turned his tearful gaze towards the window, saw what had silenced his girlfriend. He sniffed, removed his glasses, and wiped at his eyes and cheeks with the heel of his hand.

Flanagan entered the café and approached their table, keeping her expression friendly. She indicated one of the unoccupied leather-bound tub chairs and asked, ‘May I?’

Barry turned his face away. Julie nodded.

Flanagan sat down. ‘I called over at your house, but no one was home. Lucky I saw you through the window.’

‘What can we do for you?’ Julie asked.

‘I’d like to ask a few questions, if you don’t mind.’

Julie looked to Barry, who looked at his lap. She turned back to Flanagan. ‘I didn’t think you were working on my parents’ case.’

‘I’m not,’ Flanagan said. ‘It’s just for my own curiosity, completely off the record.’

‘Now isn’t the best time,’ Julie said. ‘If it’s not official, I’d rather not—’

‘It’ll only take a few minutes. A couple of questions and I’ll be out of your way.’

Julie sat quiet for a moment, then said, ‘All right. So long as you’re quick.’

‘You know I saw your mother the evening she died,’ Flanagan said.

‘Yes.’

‘She told me that she and your father were planning a weekend away. She’d booked a cottage that morning. If they hadn’t died, your parents would be in Portstewart right now.’

‘But they did die,’ Julie said, her face expressionless. ‘So they’re not.’

‘What strikes me as odd,’ Flanagan said, ‘is why your mother would book a cottage that she never intended to use. If she and your father planned to die that night, why make plans for the weekend?’

‘Maybe they didn’t plan it. Maybe it was spur of the moment. They just did it without thinking it through.’

‘Maybe,’ Flanagan said. ‘You know, I liked your father. Ronnie was a good man. The Alzheimer’s diagnosis must have been a blow. For your parents, of course, but you too. He would’ve become quite a burden, wouldn’t he? How do you think he would have managed without your mother?’

‘Not well,’ Julie said. ‘That’s why he did it, I suppose.’

‘Put a pillow over his wife’s face and smothered her.’

Julie paled. Barry’s eyes brimmed.

‘That’s right,’ Julie said.

‘It’s not easy to kill a human being,’ Flanagan said. ‘Even if they’re unconscious from sleeping pills. Even if they can’t struggle too much. It’s a very difficult line to cross. Most of us can’t do it. We just aren’t wired that way. Only a very few can end another’s life, and fewer still can suffer the guilt. Mr Timmons.’

Barry looked up, shame on his face, as if she had caught him in some unspeakable act.

‘You said in your statement that you were at home alone all Wednesday evening.’

He wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. ‘That’s right.’

‘And you got a phone call from Julie some time after two in the morning.’

‘Yes. Then I drove straight over.’

‘And you found the bodies of Mr and Mrs Walker in their bedroom.’

‘Yes.’

‘How long do you think it took for Penny Walker to die?’

He shook his head, confusion on his face. ‘What?’

‘How long would a man have to hold a pillow over an unconscious woman’s face until she suffocated?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘How much pressure would he have to apply to make sure she couldn’t breathe?’

‘Stop it,’ Julie said.

‘I wonder if she moved,’ Flanagan said, keeping her gaze hard on Barry. ‘Even unconscious, did her body fight to live? When that man put his weight on the pillow, maybe he thought she would lie there like a doll.’

‘Please stop it,’ Julie said.

‘Maybe he didn’t expect her to resist. How would he know what it’s like to kill someone?’

For a moment, no more, Flanagan saw a pleading in Barry’s eyes. As if begging for release. Then he looked away, and she knew for certain.

‘Please leave us alone,’ Julie said, a tremor in her voice.

‘All right,’ Flanagan said. ‘Thank you for your time.’ She stood, put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. ‘Remember, when it comes right down to it, the truth is all you have left.’

‘Go,’ Julie said. ‘Please.’

Flanagan left them there, fear of the consequences already growing in her.