Those We Left Behind (8 page)

RECEPTION CALLED UP
to tell Cunningham that Ciaran had arrived almost five minutes before he was due, but she already knew that. She’d seen him approach along North Street as she looked for the hundredth time out of the window nearest her desk. All morning, through the sluggish tides of her hangover, she’d been stealing glances instead of concentrating on her paperwork.

It wasn’t Ciaran she was looking for. Rather, it was another young man, one she seemed to remember from the day before when she’d taken Ciaran to the shopping centre across from the hostel. He had watched them pass, and Ciaran had stared back. It had barely registered with Cunningham at the time, but this morning, when she had called in to the shop down the street for a coffee and a packet of mints on her way to the office, she had noticed him at the magazine shelves. She had not seen him look directly at her, only his head turning away as she glimpsed him in her peripheral vision. But still, his attention had been on her. She was certain of it.

Cunningham made Ciaran wait until his allotted time before she took the stairs down to collect him. He stood when he saw her come through the secure door.

‘Have you signed in?’ she asked. ‘Good. Follow me.’

She went back to the door, keyed in her security code, and held it open for Ciaran. She caught a scent as he walked by, one of those shower gel and deodorant brands that target young men. She pictured him choosing it in the supermarket aisle, driven by television ads that showed girls throwing themselves at boys who used the right products.

He didn’t say a word on the way to the interview room. Even when she asked if he wanted a tea or coffee, he simply shook his head.

Ciaran sat down when she asked him to, joined his hands on the tabletop, and didn’t lift his gaze from them as she took the seat opposite. She opened her notebook, placed it on top of his file, and readied her pen.

‘So what did you do yesterday evening?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

She kept her voice friendly, a soft smile fixed to her mouth. ‘Well, you did something. I saw you go off with your brother. Where’d you go?’

‘His flat.’

‘And what did you do there?’

‘Just talked.’

‘What about?’

‘Just stuff.’

‘Sounds interesting.’ She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic. If he noticed, he didn’t show it. ‘And you got back before nine, didn’t you?’

Ciaran nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Did Thomas tell you about his job?’

Ciaran said, ‘Yeah.’

‘It’s good to have a job,’ Cunningham said. ‘It gives you something to do every day. A reason to get out of bed in the morning. And you’ll have your own money. You can spend it on whatever you like. Maybe driving lessons. You could get a car too, like Thomas has.’

Ciaran shrugged.

‘I tried to get you an interview at the hotel Thomas works at, but they didn’t have any spaces. But I’ve something else you might like. I’m told you were good at gardening when you were at Hydebank.’

She waited for some response, anything, but none came.

‘Well, I know a company that does commercial gardening. Landscaping, laying out lawns, flower beds, that kind of thing. They do it for housing associations, and companies that have grounds they want to keep tidy. They’re based just out of the city, but they’d send a van every day to pick you up. A few of the boys from your hostel work there. You could all go together. How does that sound?’

She studied the tufts of dirty-blond hair on top of his head, waiting for an answer.

‘Ciaran, I asked you a question. Would you like to work for a gardening company?’

He shifted in his seat. ‘S’pose.’

‘Good,’ she said, and handed a card across the table. ‘Go and see Mr McClintock at four o’clock this afternoon. That’ll give you time to get back to the hostel and smarten up. Mr Wheatley at the hostel will give you money for a taxi. All right?’

Ciaran nodded.

Cunningham had a rising urge to shake the boy, tell him to open his mouth, say something, engage her with more than shrugs and nods. She took a breath before she spoke again.

‘Ciaran, before you came back to the hostel last night, did anything happen?’

He looked up from his hands. Such blue eyes.

‘No,’ he said. Barely a whisper.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you remember Thomas had a few words with another boy in the common room?’

A swallow. A shrug.

‘That boy, his name’s Robbie. Somebody attacked him last night. He had to go to hospital. He’ll be okay, but it was a pretty serious assault.’

Ciaran’s breathing deepened, his shoulders rising and falling. He chewed at his nail until Cunningham saw a tiny glisten of red on his lips.

‘Ciaran, do you know anything about that?’

The rasp of his breathing resonated between the walls of the interview room. His foot tapped on the floor, a jittering rhythm.

‘Ciaran?’

He looked to the window.

‘Ciaran, answer me. Do you know anything about what happened to that boy?’

He looked back to his lap.

‘Ciaran, please answer me.’

Cunningham watched as the walls went up around him, as he closed her out. She knew she might as well have been a ghost as far as he was concerned. There, across the table from her, an empty space.

An impulse hit her, too strong to be ignored. Even though she knew it wasn’t allowed, even though it went against every moment of her training, even though Edward Hughes would berate her for it, she acted on the impulse anyway.

Cunningham stood, reached across the table, took Ciaran’s hand, pulled it away from his mouth, and squeezed.

No response.

She squeezed harder. Then harder still, applying more and more pressure until Ciaran had no choice but to look up. His eyes locked with hers, froze her in place. She did not know how long passed, did not break the lock he had on her until the sound of her own sharp breathing cut through to her consciousness.

Still he stared back.

‘Ciaran, listen to me. Are you listening?’

‘Yes,’ he said, clearer than any word he’d spoken since he entered this room.

‘I am not a police officer. I couldn’t make you tell me what happened to Robbie Agnew even if you knew. That’s not the point. The point is: if you get in trouble, you’ll have to go back inside. Do you understand? If you or your brother hurt that boy, there’d be no choice. You’d have to go away again. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘And if your brother committed an assault, if he was tried and found guilty, he’d have to go to prison. Not Hydebank. A real prison. You wouldn’t be able to see him. Do you understand?’

Ciaran remained still and silent. His gaze boring into her. She eased the pressure of her hand on his, but kept hold of his fingers.

‘That boy says he doesn’t know who attacked him. So long as he doesn’t change his mind, this doesn’t have to go any further. But if anything like this happens again, you know the consequences.’

Cunningham released his hand. He let it hang there, as if suspended by a puppeteer’s string.

‘Can I go now?’ he asked.

FLANAGAN BARELY TASTED
the sandwich she ate in her car. Sunlight had crept over the station walls and swamped the car park, warming the interior of her Volkswagen Golf. Quiet here, the radio a low babble, it almost felt peaceful. Her only regret was buying a supermarket sandwich instead of something decent. She could have gone to the station canteen, but yesterday’s experience with DCI Thompson over at Ladas Drive had put her off the notion. Silence was better. Over recent months, she’d come to appreciate the peace of being alone. The calmness of it, no one’s needs to address but her own.

Selfish, perhaps. But Flanagan felt she owed herself a little self-absorption.

Her memory had been flitting through the days before her children were born, when she and Alistair had only each other and the world. A weekend trip to Ghent in Belgium, both of them drunk as lords, staggering from bar to bar, stopping on a bridge across a canal, watching the reflection of the town’s lights glimmer on the water. A smile might have been on her lips when the words from the radio snagged her conscious mind and made her reach for the volume control.

‘. . . found by a family member who heard what she believed to be a gunshot in the early hours. Police and ambulance services were called to the scene, but the as yet unnamed couple were pronounced dead this morning. A police spokeswoman said that while the investigation is at a very early stage, they are currently seeking no one else in connection with the deaths.’

The street name. It was the street name that had caught Flanagan’s ear. She held her breath as she listened, telling herself she had misheard, willing the newsreader to repeat some other address.

‘Neighbours on Mill Street said the dead couple had lived there for many years, and were well known and liked in the area.’

‘Oh no,’ Flanagan said.

The remains of the sandwich scattered in the footwell as she jammed her key into the ignition.

Flanagan had to abandon her car at the end of the narrow street, blocking in another vehicle. From here, she couldn’t quite tell which of the row of terraced houses was sealed off, which had men and women in white forensic overalls clustering in its garden.

For a moment, as she drew closer, half jogging, she thought it was another home, not the one she feared. But then she moved out into the road, got a better angle, and saw that it was. She stopped, let out a shuddering sigh.

‘Oh, Penny, no,’ she said.

No one paid attention as Flanagan approached the police line. She waved to a young uniformed constable on the other side. ‘What happened?’

He walked to the tape, saying, ‘Sorry, you’ll have to move along.’

Flanagan produced her warrant card.

The constable blushed. ‘Sorry, ma’am. I don’t really know anything, I’ve been stuck here since I arrived.’

Flanagan lifted the tape, went to duck beneath it, felt the constable’s hand on her shoulder. He called to someone beyond her vision. ‘Sir? Sir!’

DCI Brian Conn appeared from behind a marked van.

‘You can’t come in . . .’ He slowed his step as recognition broke on his face. ‘Serena? What are you doing here?’

‘They’re friends of mine,’ she said, her voice quivering as she held back her emotions.

‘I see,’ Conn said. He looked to the constable, signalled him to leave them alone. ‘I’m sorry. Even so, you shouldn’t be here.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘The daughter says she was woken around two a.m. by what she thought was a gunshot from the next bedroom, her parents’ room. She got up, went in, found the mother lying on the bed, a pillow over her face, and the father sitting in a chair with the rifle in his hands – a .22, he had a licence for it. That’s exactly how the first uniform crew on the scene found them. There were sleeping pills on the bedside locker. No signs of a struggle, so it looks like the wife knocked herself out with some pills, he smothered her with the pillow, then turned the rifle on himself.’

Flanagan looked towards the house, a happy home into which she’d been welcomed many times over the last few months. ‘I just saw Penny last night,’ she said. ‘She’d had bad news, but she was strong. I didn’t expect anything like this. Not her.’

‘The daughter says the husband was worried about how he’d cope without his wife,’ Conn said. ‘He didn’t know if he could look after himself. I’m guessing he didn’t want to find out.’

Flanagan gave a dry laugh. ‘He was learning to cook. For Christ’s sake, Ronnie, you could have tried.’

Conn put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about your friends. But I need to get on here, and you’ve no reason to be on this side of the tape. So . . .’

Flanagan nodded, turned to walk away, but stopped. ‘Wait, is Julie – the daughter – is she here?’

Conn pointed to a marked police minibus in the gateway to the small business park across the road. Flanagan saw moving forms through the tinted windows. ‘Her boyfriend’s with her.’

‘Can I speak with her?’ Flanagan asked.

Conn shoved his hands down into his pockets, exhaled through loose lips. ‘All right, go on. But don’t be long, okay?’

‘Thank you,’ Flanagan said, and walked towards the minibus. She went to the far side and found the sliding door open. Inside, Julie Walker, early-thirties, still in her nightclothes, a coat over her shoulders. A slender woman, not quite pretty. Beside her, a man of around forty, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a shabby suit.

‘Julie, I’m Serena Flanagan. We’ve met once or twice. I don’t know if you remember. I’m a friend of your mother’s.’

Julie looked back at Flanagan, her eyes red and wet, a vacant expression on her face. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t . . .’

‘Don’t worry,’ Flanagan said. She pointed to the seat opposite the couple. ‘May I?’

Julie nodded, and Flanagan climbed into the van.

‘Barry Timmons,’ the man said. He put an arm around Julie’s shoulders.

Flanagan smiled and nodded.

‘Wait,’ Julie said, studying Flanagan’s face. ‘You’re the policewoman. From that support group Mum went to.’

‘That’s right,’ Flanagan said. ‘I’m not here officially. I heard a report on the news, and I knew it was Penny and Ronnie. I saw your mother last night. She told me the cancer had spread.’

‘Yes.’ Julie nodded. ‘She told me last week. She didn’t say anything to Dad until yesterday afternoon. I was at work. He had locked himself away in his study by the time I got home. I could hear his music playing. That old jazz he listened to. I knocked the door after Mum went to her meeting, asked if he wanted me to make him a bit of toast or anything, but he told me to . . . go away. I mean, he swore at me. He’d never done that before.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Flanagan said. ‘Your mother seemed so at peace with things last night.’

‘I thought the same,’ Julie said, her gaze on the tissue in her hands. ‘We had a talk when she came home from the meeting. About how she wanted things handled, when the time came. The funeral, all that. I asked her about Dad. She just said not to worry about him, he’d be fine.’

She looked up at Flanagan. ‘I think they planned this. I think they knew when there was nothing more to be done for Mum, they would just make it easier for themselves.’

‘Maybe,’ Flanagan said. ‘I suppose we’ll never know. It’s funny, Penny told me she’d booked a cottage up in Portstewart for the weekend. She and your father were going to have one last trip together.’

Something moved behind Julie Walker’s eyes before she looked away. Flanagan felt a cold finger on her heart and said no more.

They sat quiet for a time, only the whisper of Barry’s hand making circles on Julie’s back. He stared out through the window to the street beyond.

‘Well,’ Flanagan said, ‘I just wanted you to know I’m here if there’s anything you need. Anything at all. I’m sorry for your loss.’

She reached out and stroked Julie’s hand, then climbed out of the van. As she walked back towards the tape, the tears came. Grief driving them first, then something else. It had started as an itch in her mind the moment she got into the van, then had grown in those few minutes to a quiet rage, the source of which she could not identify.

DI Conn was talking to the constable who had stopped her when she arrived. Flanagan approached. The constable had the good sense to walk away. Conn’s expression turned from impatience to concern when he saw Flanagan’s tears. She wiped at her cheeks and sniffed.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Flanagan said. ‘It’s just . . .’

Conn stared at her for a moment, then said, ‘What?’

‘I don’t know,’ Flanagan said, truthfully.

She turned away, ducked under the tape, ignoring Conn’s calls as she walked back to her car, that senseless fury burning in her all the way.