The Living (22 page)

‘We'll go together,' Matthew continued, ‘but don't say anything until we're on our own.'

I began to shake my head, wanting to say
no
, no to all of this – to erase everything that had happened since we'd arrived in Belfast – or maybe earlier. Clean slate. Start again.

I gave a crooked nod, and Matthew turned us and began to walk the two of us towards the assembly point, one arm locked tight round my shoulders, fingers gripping my upper arm.

We were among the last to leave the plaza. We trailed along after the river of people converging on the crowd up the road.

I couldn't speak. Tears ran down my face and I felt bruised, as though I'd been knocked down and kicked. If Matthew hadn't been holding on to me I might have sunk to the ground.

I paid no attention when Matthew spied the rest of the choir, far off towards the front of the crowd, and began to steer us towards them. For reasons unfathomable I preferred to lean my face into his coat and pretend that the danger lay beyond the two of us. I was shuddering now as much from shock as from the cold. Matthew held on to me, a squeeze of my shoulder every few steps being in equal parts comforting and terrifying.

Matthew has a gun
.
Matthew has a gun
.
Matthew has a gun
.

Guns are for killing. This beautiful man, this man I thought I had a real connection with, was carrying a gun. Some ideal he held, some set of principles, had made him believe that it might sometimes be all right to take a person's life.

I couldn't look at him, the whole interminable time we took to cross the gusty street and worm our way up to the others. I let the tears run down my cheeks unchecked, their salt tracks tightening in the breeze.

W
E WERE ALMOST
there. I could see Donal and Linda with their arms round each other, Joan standing with Val. Diane was talking to a police officer with a clipboard.

I felt as though Matthew and I were on the far side of an uncrossable gulf. We couldn't reach that happy space, where things were normal and safe, you could trust your friends, and all you had to do to get out of an unpleasant situation was walk away. Walk away.

The officer who had led us off stage loomed without warning in front of me. ‘Caitlín Houlihan?' she said.
Catchleen
. It stuck in her gritty throat.

I stopped walking, resisting Matthew's pull. ‘Yes?' My own voice rasped like an ill-fitting door. ‘That's me.' Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other officer look up from his clipboard and make his way towards us.

‘You're a member of the Carmina Urbana choir?'

‘That's right.'

‘What's the matter?' Matthew asked, and he packed so many layers of hostility and distrust into the question that I turned and looked at him at last. His face was like stone, and his hand on my shoulder was no less rigid.

I saw Diane looking over at us, shocked and wordless.

‘Miss Houlihan, we need to ask you some questions,' said the female officer. She nodded briefly at her colleague as he joined us. ‘My name is Sergeant Hall,' she continued. ‘You've stopped at my request, and I must now search you. Please step this way.' Her tone was personal – almost intimate.

‘Oh, you are joking!' Matthew exclaimed. ‘This is … no. Seriously, you do
not
want to do this.'

Hall regarded him coolly, then turned back to me. ‘Step this way, Miss Houlihan.'

Stunned and confused, I moved slightly towards her, but before I'd taken a step, Matthew gripped my shoulder harder – hard enough to hurt. ‘What's this about?' His voice was close to a growl. A bolt of panic shot through me. This was not safe. Not at all.

‘It's just routine,' said Hall, blinking at him. She seemed entirely calm, in control of the situation.

I could just tell her, I realized suddenly. I could lean forward and say,
he has a gun
, and he'd be arrested on the spot, wouldn't he? I glanced at him again, his beautiful mouth, the hair curling around his ear.

‘Well, she doesn't consent,' said Matthew.

I gasped. ‘
You
don't get to say what
I
consent to!' I wrenched free
of him and took a few steps forward. I wondered what she thought I might be hiding under my thin, close-fitting concert dress.

Then I remembered the memory stick, and sweat beaded out all over my body. It was all I could do to stand still. Tears were streaming down my cheeks again. Dimly, I heard Hall inform me that she'd be using the backs of her hands on my breasts, buttocks and inner thighs. I was so numb from cold that I could barely feel her touch, but as she approached where the memory stick was hidden I lost my nerve and shied away.

Hall spoke softly. ‘Is there something in your bra?'

I nodded.

‘Is it a weapon?'

I shook my head.

‘Please take it out and hand it to me.'

I dug out the memory stick, my own fingers chill against my private flesh.

Hall reached to take it from me. Before she got hold of it, though, her colleague dropped his clipboard and shouted ‘Stop!' We both turned sharply to see him dive into the crowd, walkie-talkie at his lips.

The reason for his behaviour was immediately apparent: Matthew had disappeared.

Hall took the memory stick from me, and her other hand landed heavily on my shoulder. ‘Caitlín Houlihan,' she said, ‘I'm arresting you under Section 41 of the Terrorism Act. You don't have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not
mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence.'

I heard my voice as though from far away. ‘OK,' it said.

Sergeant Hall led me to a police car and guided me into the back seat. I clicked my seatbelt into place and settled myself, almost as though I were meant to be there. All this new knowledge boiled in my brain and burned away at the flesh under my ribs. The two officers in the front of the car communicated by radio with the station, but all I could make out was a babble of syllables. My eyes were stinging now, but tearless. My hands and feet prickled as they began to recover from the cold.

What had I done? How could I
possibly
be sitting in the back of a Belfast squad car, under arrest? Why hadn't I left that stupid memory stick in my bag? This – the police getting hold of it – was exactly what Nicky Fay had been trying to avoid, presumably. What a monumental fuck-up I'd made of George's assignment. He might fire me.

That's if I even came through this mess without going to prison. That thought made me retch. It dripped through my head like some sort of corrosive slime. I couldn't go near it.

What on earth did they think I'd done? ‘Terrorism Act', Sergeant Hall had said. Well, that was ludicrous. I wasn't a terrorist.

If my mind refused to dwell on these subjects, I couldn't think about the choir either. Diane and some of the others must have seen me being searched, taken away. How could I ever look them in the face again?

All this without even mentioning Matthew. Whatever about anything else, how had
that
happened? I'd risked my safety and joined up with a man who'd bring a gun to a bomb scare and run away from the police.

The journey seemed to take a week, but at last we stopped outside a big bunker of a building, and I was led inside. After the booking procedure, which would have been mind-numbing if I'd had any mind left to numb, I was brought to a smallish, windowless room lit by a glaring fluorescent oblong. Someone would see me ‘shortly'. The door closed with a loud click behind me.

And there I stayed. The room was bare apart from a table and two chairs. I sat gingerly on the dirty plastic seat of the chair nearest me and rested my elbows on the cold surface of the table. My feet screamed their thanks for the reprieve. Without my phone I had no notion what the time might be. It must be around nine, I guessed. I was still shivering, but from what mixture of cold and emotion I couldn't tell. Scanning round the room I noticed the camera lens in the corner by the ceiling. I resisted the temptation to wave.

So, they'd be interviewing me soon. Questioning me. Here I was,
assisting the police with their enquiries
. I'd waived my right to a solicitor, not seeing a viable alternative. I wondered if there was anything I could do to prepare myself. How could I make them believe that I wasn't a terrorist? I wished I knew more about body language. I wished I knew more, full stop.

What if they asked me about Matthew? Despite the gun,
despite everything, I still found a tiny flicker of loyalty to him, somewhere deep down. In one little puddle of clarity I knew that, despite everything, if he was going to get in trouble I didn't want it to be greater because of me.

Cate, there was a fucking
bomb scare
. People could have been
killed
.

I remembered the warmth of his hand on my shoulder, the reassuring solidity of it.

I'd stay as calm as I could, and I'd answer their questions truthfully. But I wouldn't give them more than they were asking for.

It was none too warm in the room, but eventually I thawed. Then there were just the jitters of stress to contend with. I stood up and paced the short distance back and forth across the room, feeling like a cliché. Next, perhaps, I'd carve those bristly day-counting marks into the wall with my hairclip.

Maybe I could escape – maybe if I tried hard enough, I could turn myself into mist or smoke, snake under the door, waft through the building, curl around the officers' heads and hands as they went about their business unaware, disperse out through vents and windows to resolidify in the street outside. And why stop there, indeed? Life as an evanescent fog held a certain appeal just now.

Why was I in this room on my own? Were they going to leave me here all night? When would something happen?

Nothing did, not until I had given up hope that it would, had given up pacing and stretching and had sat in that horrible chair until my buttocks froze.

I had just stood up to try and get my blood circulating again when the door opened. I turned to see Sergeant Hall coming in with a tray on which there was a jug of water and two plastic beakers. Following her was another officer, a man, who carried a leather briefcase.

I stood as tall as I could, fighting off my feebleness.

The male officer went to the other side of the table and put his bag down on the floor. He reached across to shake my hand. ‘Miss Houlihan?' Some eddy in the air as he leaned forward gave me a noseful of worthy-smelling soap.

‘That's right,' I said, aiming recklessly for a tone of serene entitlement, as though I did not have a tear-streaked face, goose-pimpled arms and a blister forming on the ball of my right foot. I was in freefall. This was totally unreal.

‘Sergeant Phillips is my name.' He gestured for me to sit down, and sat opposite me. The chair creaked as it took his weight. Sergeant Hall placed her tray on the table and went to stand at the door; she didn't catch my eye when I looked over.

Phillips spoke. ‘Just some questions, if you don't mind, Miss Houlihan.' He took from the briefcase a slightly dog-eared notepad and a pen. No mention of how long I'd been waiting, or why I was here at all.

So this was it. In a flood of certainty I realized I'd tell them everything. Matthew could look after himself.

Phillips looked straight at me. ‘Who is David Cornwell?'

The room whirled.

I sat and breathed, riding this latest billow of shock.
David Cornwell?
The name meant nothing to me. Slowly, I gathered my lips to form
What?
– but Phillips went on before my throat made any sound.

‘How do you know Noel, Eric and Frank?'

I managed to shake my head. This was weird – something had gone badly askew. I was in the wrong room of the wrong police station on the wrong night. I coughed, and found my voice. ‘I don't know anyone called Noel. Or Frank. I was in primary school with an Eric …'

Phillips was writing. ‘Eric what?'

‘I don't remember.' I was doing my best, trying to give Phillips what he was looking for. He was grey-haired and soft-spoken, with a deeply lined face and big, pendulous earlobes. ‘O'Connor?' I ventured. I was shaking again now, worse than earlier.

‘Eric O'Connor. And where was that?'

‘Queen of Angels, Ardee. County Louth. In the … Republic …' I faltered.

Phillips scrutinized me for a second or two, then wrote again.

I said, ‘Sorry, what's this about?' I felt weak, empty, dreamlike, floored by astonishment.

Phillips gave the tiniest smile. ‘You know what this is about.' He nodded, looking straight at me again, brown eyes set close together under thick brows.

‘I honestly don't,' I said, offering him my open palms as though to prove my point.

‘Come on, Miss Houlihan. Use your brain.' He leaned back in his chair. ‘Who gave you the thumb drive?'

‘Nicky Fay!' I exclaimed, feeling bizarrely relieved that I was able to tell him something relevant.

Phillips nodded as he wrote. ‘That's right,' he said. ‘Nicky Fay, in the Starbucks café, earlier today.' The rhyming was deliberate. There was an air almost of celebration in the room.

I wanted to say,
If you knew, then why ask me?
But that would not be wise. Instead, I said, ‘May I have some water?'

Phillips poured out some and handed it to me. I sipped gratefully, feeling the cold liquid proceed down my oesophagus.

‘What's on the thumb drive, Miss Houlihan?' Phillips looked straight at me again, face serious.

‘I think it's a file …' I began, and he tilted his head very slightly to one side, as if to tell me to get on with it. ‘It's a document that my boss needs for a book.'

Phillips was writing again. ‘Who do you work for, Miss Houlihan?' Such an ordinary question, so quietly delivered, but in this context, so sinister.