The Silent Dead (Paula Maguire 3) (27 page)

‘Get down!’ Fiacra was grabbing for her head, pushing her down. ‘Shit. I think that was them. That was the shooter.’

‘Did you see anything?’ She’d had a momentary glimpse of a dirty white van, no number plate, the windows tinted out.

Fiacra was scrabbling at the door. ‘No. Shit. Come on, we have to grab him and get out of here. It’s not safe.’

Kira

‘Did you ever love anyone?’ she asked.

From the corner, Lily called out – ’Don’t talk to him, Kira.
’
She was always on her phone when it was their turn to mind the man, her hair falling over her face in a big shiny curtain. Kira ignored her. They didn’t tell Lily everything because she didn’t understand. They didn’t even tell her on the day it all happened, because she couldn’t be trusted. The man was in his cage in the corner, head slumped onto his chest. He never said much.

Kira asked again. ‘You must have. You have kids? I saw pictures.’

‘My daughter,’ he said, his voice rusty. ‘She doesn’t see me much.’

‘But you must have loved someone – a woman? Your wife? I mean, loved someone so much that when you lost them you thought you might die without them?’

He said nothing for a long time, so she didn’t think he was going to answer. Sometimes he just didn’t, not for hours. She sat back against the wall, looking around the little hut. Lily was in her usual spot in the old green armchair Dominic had brought up there, her long legs propped on the windowsill. Kira thought she did this so men would see, even though the only man there was
the
man. She just couldn’t help it.

After a while he coughed – he coughed a lot, usually horrible ones full of phlegm that made her want to cover her ears. ‘Her,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I loved her. Catherine.’

The woman? Kira stared at him but his head was still bowed, hands laced together over his knees. He looked broken. Kira was remembering things she’d told herself she wasn’t going to think about ever – the moonlight catching the woman’s blonde hair, the sound of her crashing about in the trees and the way she was crying. What she’d said when they’d caught her and it was time for the end –
please, my baby. My baby.

And how she’d called out to the man –
Martin, please don’t let them—

He hadn’t even looked at her. He hadn’t done a thing to save her; instead he’d given her up to them. Kira couldn’t understand it. ‘You loved her?’

‘Aye. We met because our . . . what we believed in. She was with another man, and she’d a child already, but she wanted me. She was younger, too young, but she was beautiful, so beautiful, and I . . . I was weak. I loved her. Now she’s dead because of it.’

He was talking to her like an adult, or more likely, as if he’d forgotten she was there. Rambling. His eyes didn’t seem to be looking at anything. ‘We didn’t mean it,’ he said, staring past her. ‘It was never meant to go like that . . . All those people, dead. Blood in the street. Those wee kids. It wasn’t meant to be like that.’

Kira leaned in towards his bars, so she could smell the stink of his bucket in the corner. ‘Why did you do it?’ she whispered. ‘How could you?’

Lily turned her head, annoyed, but was distracted by her phone. Probably texting Dominic or looking at one of her stupid fashion blogs. He said nothing, and Kira was almost glad, because she didn’t really know what it was she was asking.

Chapter Thirty

‘Where are you hurt?’ Blood was bubbling up from under Gerard’s white T-shirt. Her hands were already covered in it from where they’d dragged him into the car.
Shit
. She took off her scarf with the clock pattern, her favourite, and pressed it firmly against his stomach. His heart was racing so fast it was almost a blur, but at least that meant he was still alive. ‘What happened? Why did they shoot him?’

‘Total fuck-up,’ said Fiacra succinctly, running a red light on Market Street. ‘He went to meet the tipster on his own. I’d guess it’s the local Ra, and they didn’t take too kindly to him snooping around. He was being set up with this meet.’

‘For fuck’s sake. I told him not to! He went on his own to meet an anonymous source?’

‘Aye, he’s an eejit. Help him, will you? He’s losing fuckloads of blood.’

In the back, Gerard was filling most of the car seat. A smell of hot blood. His face was clammy and his breath came in pants.

‘S’OK,’ muttered Gerard. ‘S’not too bad.’

Fiacra said, ‘You’ve been shot, you fecking eejit.’

‘You’re OK. You’ll be OK.’ Knowing this was a stupid thing to say, Paula tried not to look out the front, pressing down as hard as she could on Gerard. With the size of him and her own remaining baby weight they were pressed up so close she could smell the frightened sweat under his Lynx. ‘You’ll be OK.’ She felt his fingers on her wrist. ‘What is it?’

‘Mum,’ he breathed. ‘Call my ma. Tell her.’

‘I will, of course, but you’re fine, you’ll be fine. Listen, Gerard, do you know why this happened? Did you find out something? What was your hunch?’

His eyes were fluttering. ‘Knew he wasn’t right . . .’

‘Who? Gerard, tell us!’

It was too late. He was slumped over, unconscious from blood loss. Most of it seemed to be over Paula’s clothes and hands. She could hear the panic in her voice. ‘For God’s sake, drive!’

‘We’re there.’

Though she’d always hated Ballyterrin General Hospital, Paula had never been happier to see the blue door of A & E come into view. Fiacra slammed on the brakes, halfway up the pavement, and Paula was thrown forward again. A fresh spurt of Gerard’s blood pumped through the scarf and over her wrist. Then doctors were running up with a stretcher, and Saoirse was one of them, and they were taking Gerard off her and removing the scarf, bringing clean bandages.

‘We’ve got him from here.’ Attaching an IV, Saoirse threw Paula a brisk backwards look. ‘You should sit down. You look like you’re in shock.’

‘Come on.’ Fiacra was taking her by the shoulders and moving her into the waiting room. ‘We have to leave him now. They know what they’re doing.’

‘My hands.’ She held them up, like Lady Macbeth. The cuffs of her grey jumper were sodden, and blood stuck in her nails and skin. On the front of her top, it made what looked like an abstract painting. ‘It’ll not come off,’ said Fiacra grimly. ‘Hope it wasn’t your favourite.’

She sank down on a plastic chair, the legs crumpling under her. Fiacra remained standing. He rubbed his face and Paula saw the front of his shirt was also bathed in blood. ‘How did you know he was there?’

‘He rang me. The van was following him – he was in some alley on the estate and he knew he wouldn’t get away. He said he’d try to protect his head and run to the main road and I was to get him and go straight to hospital. He knew no one on the estate would call him an ambulance.’

‘So you just went?’

‘Course I did. I’m not – well, I know what you think of me. But you don’t know everything that went on, OK? You don’t know what I’ve been going through with my family and all that business with – Avril. You know – nothing.’ His voice went high and cracked.

Paula let him finish. Then she stood up and put her arms awkwardly round him, smearing blood over his blue work shirt. She was ashamed she’d ever wondered about him – he was just a boy, really, hurting and confused. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘He’ll be all right. You saved his life.’

Fiacra rubbed his eyes with screwed up fists. He pulled away. ‘Thanks. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right.’

It was a long ten minutes for Fiacra and Paula, waiting in the stark room with the posters on sexual health. Having just come to the end of a surprise (stupidity-induced) pregnancy, that was the last thing Paula wanted to see. She’d rung the house several times but there was no answer – Corry must have taken Maggie somewhere else. Fiacra was pacing up and down, occasionally pushing his fists against the walls or chairs, and she longed to tell him to stop fidgeting, but didn’t. He might start crying again. Eventually Corry came in, grim-faced.

‘Is he—’ Fiacra stopped in his tracks.

‘He’s all right,’ said Corry. ‘Bloody eejit. This is a publicity nightmare.’ She saw their faces. ‘Yes, yes, I know, but Monaghan will be fine, though he might have a bit of damage to the six-pack he’s so fond of flaunting in the station changing room.’

‘Where’s Maggie?’ asked Paula, feeling her heartbeat slow a little. ‘Is she all right?’

‘I left her at your father’s. She’s grand. I’m more worried about you two. Honestly, Dr Maguire, can you not stay out of trouble for even one day?’

‘What have we got to do with it?’ Paula was bewildered.

‘You were seen picking him up, weren’t you? DC Monaghan was sent an anonymous email claiming to have information about the case – same person who emailed the
Ballyterrin Gazette
with the leaked notes, it turns out.’

‘Was the email a string of numbers, the date of the bomb?’

Corry glared at Paula and nodded. ‘Yes, and rather than bring it to me as further evidence of the leak, he went alone to meet them. Someone clearly wanted him out of the way – maybe he was getting too close to the truth with those informers of his. And I’ve no doubt they saw you and know exactly who you are. DC Monaghan will be moved to a secure unit where they used to put injured soldiers. You two better lie low. Why didn’t you ring an ambulance?’

‘He called me,’ said Fiacra stubbornly. ‘He said the ambulance might not go down there. He was in big trouble, he said. The blood. He knew it was bad.’

‘Yes, I can see.’ Corry wrinkled her nose. ‘You two look like extras from a horror film. I’d send you home to clean up but I can’t spare the officers to guard you right now.’

‘It can’t be that serious,’ said Paula, shocked.

Another glare. ‘Do you really want to risk finding out, Dr Maguire? You with a new baby at home?’

‘No,’ she muttered.

‘Right. So you’ll stay here until I can have you escorted home.’

Fiacra and Paula spent the next hour as virtual prisoners in the waiting room, Corry and a uniformed officer stationed outside. Paula had read the same poster about gonorrhoea about a hundred times when she heard loud steps outside, running down the corridor.

‘Where is he?’

‘Ms Wright, you can’t—’

‘I need to see him!’

Paula tried hard not to look at Fiacra as the sound of Avril’s panicked voice reached them in the room. She got up, slowly, and looked out the glass panel of the door to see Corry remonstrating with Avril, whose face was shiny with tears. ‘You can’t see him, he’s in theatre.’

‘Oh no, oh no . . .’

‘His spleen is lacerated but he can live without that, so let’s not panic, all right?’

More noisy sobs. Corry rolled her eyes at Paula through the glass, then opened the door and propelled Avril in with a gesture halfway between a pat and a shove. ‘There now, Dr Maguire will have a wee chat with you, sure isn’t that what she’s good at?’

Paula shot Corry an irritated glare and led Avril in. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘He – they said he got shot – oh!’

‘Come on, sit down. Calm yourself.’ The analyst, normally so neatly turned out, was dressed in jeans and a hoody, on the back of which was printed QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY GIRLS HOCKEY 2005. Her shoulders were heaving. Paula reflected that comforting weeping women was becoming a large part of her job – though she could hardly talk after she’d made a holy show of herself the night Lynch’s body had been found. ‘He’ll be fine Avril, honest.’

‘What happened? How did he get shot – oh!’ she caught sight of Paula’s stained jumper. ‘Is that
blood
?’

Paula hastily folded her arms. ‘It’s not as bad as it it looks. They said he’d be OK.’

Avril shook her head, giving out more noisy mewling. Fiacra lurched over from his seat in the corner, looking as pale and miserable as she did. ‘They did say he’d be grand, honest.’

‘You were with him.’ It could almost have been an accusation.

‘Naw, he rang me, like. The van was chasing him, and they must have known he had intel, so he said he’d run to the main road and I was to pick him up there. It was too late. But we got him here as fast as I could, honest.’

Avril wiped a shaky hand over her eyes. ‘I wish I could see him. Last time I – oh, I said some awful things. Said it was all his fault. Told him he was an arrogant you-know-what – getting involved with the IRA, and also . . . you know, what happened with Alan.’

Fiacra took her hand clumsily. ‘Well, so did I. I nearly took a swing at him and all. But when he got in diffs, he rang me. He may be an arrogant fecker but he doesn’t hold grudges.’

She continued to cry, her face screwed up, and Fiacra looked stricken. He slid to his knees in front of her. ‘Ah, here. I’m sorry, OK? I never should have said a word to Alan. What I did was awful, but sure I never thought – I was just in a mess over Aisling and her wean, but it’s no excuse. I’m sorry, Avril. You were a good friend to me and I blew it, just because I wanted more.’

With an inarticulate noise she grabbed him to her in a hug. Paula saw his eyes close and thought he still wanted more, whatever he might say. She went back to the door and tapped on the glass. Corry turned her head.
Please let me out
, she mouthed.

Corry just smiled and shook her head. It made a change, Paula thought, grumpily sitting down again, when she and Guy were not the most emotionally messed-up members of the team.

Kira

Kira couldn’t look at them. ‘Do I have to do it?’

‘Yes. She knows too much, and she won’t suspect you. You’re only a kid.’

‘But . . .’

‘You agreed, Kira. This is for Rose, and all the others.’

‘But she didn’t do anything!’

‘No, but she’d put us in prison if she could. She’s close to finding out. We need to stop her. It was her picked up the other officer, the one who was nearly on to us.’

‘And . . . you’ll just talk to her, you promise? You won’t hurt her.’

‘We won’t need to. She hasn’t done anything wrong, like you said.’

‘But . . .’

‘We can just persuade her. She’ll understand. They’ve hurt her too, the bad people.’

‘She has a little baby.’

‘We just want to talk to her. It has to be you, Kira. Or else this whole thing, it will be for nothing, and we’ll go to prison, while those people got away with it
.
’

But they didn’t get away with it. They were dead, all of them except the last. She couldn’t think what to do. Rose’s voice had been fading since they killed the first man. Since everything started to go wrong. She’d wanted them dead, yeah, but when it really happened she’d thought they would just talk to them. She’d thought they would show photos, make them see what they’d done, and maybe they’d confess and go to prison. She didn’t know this was the plan, the hurting, and then taking them away and killing them somewhere. And hurting the policeman, when he hadn’t done anything wrong, he was trying to
help
them . . .

‘I . . .’

He was looking at her. His eyes were flat and cold. ‘Kira. You’re in this now. It was all your idea. You don’t have a choice.’

Still looking at her feet, so they wouldn’t see she was nearly crying, she nodded. The weird thing was the only person she could think to ask what to do was the man, and he was in his cage again in the corner, and anyway, what would she ask? She knew the answers already, and inside her head, so did Rose. But it was too late.