‘Mr. Murphy, we know that you and your three siblings didn’t arrive back in Manchester until after we estimate Padraig O’Connell was murdered’ said Ollie, watching for a reaction but Kieran Murphy remained stone faced. ‘Just in case that’s what you think we were aiming at’.
‘So it’s just the murder of my brother you’re trying to put me in the frame for then?’
‘Not at all, Mr. Murphy’ said Jeff. ‘There are just certain things we need to know in order to progress our investigation into your brother’s murder. Now with regard to O’Connell, did you ever meet him apart from in County Antrim three days ago?’
‘Yes’ Kieran confirmed. ‘We first met about six months ago after he’d finally agreed to meet with us. We wanted so badly to lay Mammy to rest in peace and it turned out that he was the only one who could help us’.
‘Why was that’ Jeff asked.
‘He and two other IRA men took Mammy’s body to that stretch of beach where they buried her’ Murphy explained. ‘The other two are long gone. O’Connell could stretch the patience of a bloody saint, so he could. We should’ve been on the same side but because of what he’d done to Mammy we were mortal enemies. He made us drag his agreement out of him to help us over three further meetings before he finally gave in and told us of the stretch of beach where Mammy was buried. He wouldn’t go into detail about what happened to her whilst they held her but he did open up about all of that to a newspaper and from what he described Mammy must’ve been relieved when they did actually shoot her. I didn’t like or dislike O’Connell, officer. My feelings towards him were indifferent. But when he couldn’t precisely identify where Mammy was buried when we got to that beach three days ago it made me more angry than I thought it was possible to be. But as you’ve already said, I couldn’t have killed him, officer. Although I admit that I wanted to’.
‘You could’ve given the signal to someone else back here to do it’ said Ollie.
‘Yes, you’re right’ Kieran answered through clenched teeth. ‘But I didn’t’.
‘Did you ever go to O’Connell’s flat?’
‘Yes’ said Murphy. ‘Twice’.
Jeff thought for a moment. Ollie was right. Kieran Murphy could’ve had someone working for him. It was something they’d have to check out. But there were other things to press Murphy on first.
‘Okay’ said Jeff. ‘But if we could get back to your brother, Mr. Murphy? Why didn’t he go with you and the rest of your family to see if O’Connell could identify where your mother had been buried by the IRA?’
Kieran took a deep breath. ‘Barry had been estranged from the rest of his family for the last twenty years’.
‘And why was that?’
‘Twenty years ago, just after we’d started this campaign after all other ways of trying to find out what happened to Mammy had been exhausted, the IRA contacted us. They admitted, as if we didn’t know already, what they’d done with her and where she’d been buried. They also told us that Padraig O’Connell had been the leader behind the whole operation. They offered us money to basically shut up and go away. We all refused the money except for Barry. He took it. And he used it to set up his car dealership business. The rest of us were incensed and never spoke to him again’.
‘Do you think he could’ve murdered Padraig O’Connell?’
‘What?’
‘As a means of making things up with you and the rest of the family somehow?’
‘No’ said Kieran. ‘My brother accepted money from murderers but he wasn’t one himself. You’d be wasting your time if you went down that road’.
‘So what else did they tell you at the Farmers Arms about Chris O’Neill, Adrian?’ asked DSI Jeff Barton who’d called a morning brief with his team. He was feeling pleased with life this morning. His seven year-old son Toby had gone for a whole month without wetting the bed which must mean that he was feeling better emotionally and there’d been a hilarious moment that morning when Toby had given further instructions to their live-in housekeeper and nanny Brendan who’d been cooking Toby’s dim sum dumplings for breakfast but couldn’t quite get them soft enough once they were cooked and Toby had invoked the example of his maternal Chinese grandma Cynthia who never failed to get them right. Toby and Brendan had a mini spat over it and Jeff had waited behind the door of the kitchen listening to it all going on and trying not to laugh out loud. Toby was going to grow up to be the kind of man who knew exactly what he wanted and how to get it.
‘They say he moved into the area about six months ago, sir’ said DS Adrian Bradshaw. ‘He lives in a flat about a quarter of a mile from the pub. One of the girls managed to get a selfie with him in it which she said was no mean feat. Apparently he doesn’t like having his picture taken’.
‘Interesting’ said Jeff. ‘I wonder why that is’.
‘We’ve had the picture enlarged and copied’ said DC Joe Alexander as he pinned the picture of Chris O’Neill to the white information board they were using. ‘It’s not a perfect picture but it gives you an idea’.
‘Good looking chap’ Jeff remarked. ‘And do we know what he does for a living?’
‘According to the staff at the pub he’s some kind of computer analyst, sir’ said Adrian. ‘But none of them knew for sure’.
‘Sounds a little secretive our Mr. O’Neill’ said Jeff. ‘And being a computer analyst covers a multitude of sins these days’.
‘We went round to his flat, sir, and there was no sign of him’ said DC Joe Alexander. ‘No reply from either of his closest neighbours either, sir, but a Mrs. Joan Farrell who lives in the flat directly below O’Neill and is retired says that most people in the area work during the day so the best time to catch them is at night. She said she hadn’t seen O’Neill for a couple of days but that when she does see him he’s always very pleasant and courteous. She didn’t have any reason to be suspicious of him in any way’.
‘We’re looking into his background, sir’ said DI Ollie Wright. ‘His tax and national insurance records etc. According to his neighbour Mrs. Farrell he worked at NW Systems in Bramhall. We should have the necessary information back later today’.
‘And in the meantime there’s the issue of his posh girlfriend in Cheshire who they think is married’ said Jeff. ‘And that’s a profile that Tabitha Murphy fits very well’.
‘It would be one hell of a coincidence, sir’ said DS Adrian Bradshaw.
‘Yes I agree, Adrian’ Jeff agreed. ‘But I’m certain there’s a link between the murders of O’Connell and Murphy. There’s just too much that can connect them and Tabitha Murphy is hiding something and though it may turn out to be nothing at all in relation to this investigation I still want it checking out. Try putting some pressure on her sister Jade. I get the feeling she may open up to us about her sister and tell us something that will be interesting’.
There wasn’t much love lost between Tabitha Murphy and her sister Jade Matheson. Jade had always believed that her younger sibling had been the favoured one of their parents and that she’d always struggled to get a look in when Tabitha could just click her fingers and everyone started dancing to her tune. She’d done it with her late husband Barry. She’d done it with everyone.
Jade had always worked. She was a hairdresser with her own salon in Wilmslow. At least her parents had helped her set that up although they’d done it begrudgingly. Tabitha had never worked a day in her sorry little spoilt brat life. She’d lived on an allowance from their parents and sponged off one rich boyfriend after another all of whom, funnily enough, ditched her in the end when they realised what a ride she was taking them for. She was gorgeous. Jade would give her that. But then beauty is so often only skin deep.
But now Tabitha swears she’s in love for the first time. Jade had wanted to burst out laughing when she told her but the feeling suddenly disappeared when Tabitha asked her sister if she’d take over the care of her daughter Georgina. She was planning to go away and leave Georgina behind. That’s when Jade understood that this time her sister was being deadly serious. But Tabitha didn’t know just how serious Jade was going to be too.
Jeff was looking intently at the white information board with it’s now many pictures and scribbles about the investigation. Nobody had been able to contact Chris O’Neill and Jeff would concede that they didn’t have much to go on in the murder of Padraig O’Connell or Barry Murphy except for a list of coincidences and prepositions.
Kieran Murphy had been insistent on not having had anything to do with the murder of Padraig O’Connell. They’d taken statements from all of O’Connell’s family who lived in Greater Manchester and been able to rule them all out. Each of their alibis had been tight and besides, they came across as having had genuine affection for their brother. So could this have been an inside job from a member of the IRA who thought that O’Connell had talked too much or from someone who was associated with the former RUC in Northern Ireland? In his own inimitable way O’Connell had probably managed to piss off both sides of the sectarian divide.
Then what about Barry Murphy? He’d taken hush money from the IRA to set himself up in business and it had turned out to be a highly successful investment. But the rest of his family had turned against him for it and Jeff didn’t blame them. He wouldn’t have taken the money either. So why did Barry? Did he just see it as drawing a line under a hateful past and giving them all the opportunity to move on?
Jeff kept saying to himself that there was a definite connection between these two murders. But what the hell was it? Where could he draw the line of definition between them?
He’d looked into the case of the disappearance of Deirdre Murphy, snatched from her kitchen by a gang of IRA men, led by Padraig O’Connell, back in 1974, in front of her children. With the obvious exception of her eldest, Barry, they were all grown up now and living ordinary lives in the suburbs of north and east Manchester. Her second son Kieran was involved in helping all the families of the disappeared. But what of the others? Statements had been taken from each one of them and Jeff couldn’t detect anything that would lead him into believing they had anything to do with their brother’s murder. But Kieran had known about the glasses of Irish whiskey his older brother had poured shortly before someone had walked into his office and killed him. And the only way he could’ve known about that was if someone on the inside of the investigation had leaked it, not impossible but rather unlikely, or if Kieran Murphy knew because he was there and saw the glasses with his own eyes. But if he was the killer then what would his motive be? Kieran and his brother were estranged but that went back twenty years. He’d had all that time to settle any grudge so why would he choose now?
‘Sir, you’ve got to see this’ said DI Ollie Wright, looking up from his computer screen.
‘See what, Ollie?’ Jeff asked as he walked over to Ollie’s desk.
‘Chris O’Neill? Or should I say Christopher James O’Neill?’
‘What about him?’
‘He’s dead, sir’.
‘What?’
‘The Christopher James O’Neill who had that national insurance number and tax reference died almost a year ago of leukemia at a hospital in Belfast’ Ollie revealed. ‘Seems like we’re looking at a case of stolen identity’.
‘Yes’ Jeff agreed. ‘But for what reason?’
THROWN DOWN EIGHT
One of the economies Patricia and Dennis Knight had made after Dennis retired was to stop buying a daily paper as a matter of routine. They had the TV for news and always watched the evening bulletin, usually on channel 9. But if they did decide to get a daily paper on the basis of something specific being in a particular edition that they wanted to read about they’d always get the Melbourne-based national daily ‘The Age’. It was the one they’d got throughout their marriage when they’d both been working and they felt familiar with it.
But they never thought that one day they might be in it themselves for all the wrong reasons.
‘Mrs. Knight! Mrs. Patricia Knight! I’m Diane Parker, I’m a journalist on The Age newspaper. Have you seen the article in today’s edition about you and your past in Northern Ireland? We wanted to get your side of the story but you didn’t answer any of our calls. But it isn’t too late, Mrs. Knight. We can have your side of things in tomorrow’s edition and we’re prepared to sign an exclusive deal with you’.
Patricia was terrified. She’d woken up to find herself alone. Dennis was nowhere to be seen. Where had he gone? He hadn’t left a note. She’d tried calling him on his mobile but it kept going to voicemail. She didn’t know what to make of it. Had he left her? Was she on her own now? Had the sheer weight of history come crashing down on her? Was she finally having to pay her debts to the universe? Had she lost the only man who’d ever really meant anything to her and did she only have herself to blame? She couldn’t bear the thought of what she’d done to him. She’d broken his heart with her truth. He said he couldn’t stand even looking at her after what she’d told him. He’d slept in the spare room last night. It was the room where their grandchildren slept when they came over and stayed. She’d gone in there a few moments ago and found the bed made and tidy. Dennis always makes their bed in the same way. He’d done it all the way through their married life. She couldn’t lose him now. She just couldn’t lose him now. That would be worse than facing up to anything she’d done in the past. But it looked like he’d done a disappearing act. He didn’t want to speak to her. Perhaps he never would again.