The Killing House

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Mr Tozier, is it?’ Corry’s hand was extended.

  ‘It is. Declan.’ He held out his hand to Corry’s and they shook, with no warmth.

  ‘DI Helen Corry. Dr Maguire, who’s in to consult. I wasn’t expecting you so soon.’

  ‘I’m afraid you should have been, DI Corry. Usual procedure would be to inform us right away when such remains are found.’

  ‘We’ve no evidence so far to suggest these are relevant remains. They were found during building works, as I’m sure you’re aware, and there’s no proof of paramilitary involvement.’

  ‘We’ve received some information that suggests otherwise.’

  Corry stopped dead. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. As you probably know, DI Corry, there’s a set protocol to follow and we’re already behind. I need to brief you immediately.’

  Corry’s tone was still pleasant but her eyes were pure steel. ‘Now? As in, take me away from the ongoing investigation?’

  Paula had no idea what was going on.

  ‘That’s what I mean, yes. This is very important. We need to get a media strategy in place, bring in Victim Support, inform the relevant families before they see anything on the news. It’s probably too late for that, though. That’s what the media strategy is for and we’ve missed our window.’

  Corry’s mouth narrowed. Those were two of her least favourite words, Paula knew. Media strategy. And to top it off, here was her least favourite person hurrying towards them, buttoning his expensive suit. ‘Hello, hello, DCI Campbell, head of Serious Crime. You must be Declan?’

  A hearty handshake. Paula caught Corry’s minuscule eye-roll. The new man said, ‘I was just saying we need to get DI Corry briefed right away.’

  ‘Of course, of course. We can use my office.’ Campbell bustled off with the newcomer, shooting Corry a look that clearly said: hurry up and follow.

  ‘Who is that?’ said Paula, who’d never seen Willis Campbell move so fast when there wasn’t a TV camera in the vicinity.

  ‘The thorn in our sides,’ said Corry bleakly. ‘That fella there is from the bloody Commission. We can kiss goodbye to any actual progress now, Maguire. Feck it.’

  ‘Maguire. Your man from the Commission wants us all in the meeting room.’ DS Gerard Monaghan, Paula’s ex-colleague at the missing persons’ unit, was leaning over the partition wall by her borrowed desk. She was using it with distaste; it was dusty, and someone else’s crisp crumbs were stuck in the computer keys.

  Paula looked up from her report. ‘Does he? Making himself very much at home, isn’t he?’ She followed Gerard, letting him open the heavy internal doors as they went through. Gerard was in the gym every morning before work, and prayed each day for a chance to give chase and wrestle a suspect to the ground.

  ‘And how. Corry’s gonna blow her top soon. I’ve got my money on today before lunch.’

  ‘There’s money on it?’ Paula lowered her voice as they neared the meeting room.

  ‘Oh aye. Up to a hundred quid. Avril’s keeping the records in a wee spreadsheet.’ He held the door for her and she ducked in. Declan Tozier was standing at the head of the table, lanyard swinging, a PowerPoint ready to go. He was so clearly not police; something in his calm manner, his neat clothes. He knew exactly what he was supposed to be doing, and how it would help people. Paula envied that. There’d been a lot of controversy around the setting up of the Commission – over the very idea that you’d appease terrorists, allow them immunity so they might tell you where they dumped the bodies of their victims – but on the whole it had been a success, with many of the Disappeared already found, bodies returned to their families for burial. Part of the whole process of healing, forgetting, moving on. Though not everyone liked it.

  Corry sat beside Tozier with a stiff expression on her face. ‘Come on, come on,’ she said irritably. ‘We don’t have all day. Shut the door, Monaghan, were you born in a barn?’

  They found seats. There were several people in the room Paula didn’t recognise, someone from the CSIs, maybe, and other agencies. Finding IRA victims was a total headache. ‘Thanks, everyone.’ Tozier had a professional little smile. ‘So. As you probably know, the legislation around the ICLVR is a complicated beast.’ Paula saw Gerard writing down the acronym on his notepad, mouthing it to himself. Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains. ‘The laws were made so information could be given without fear of prosecution – to find the bodies of long-missing victims and give the families some measure of peace. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean no one can be prosecuted if we do find something. Do you see?’

  Paula didn’t. The law seemed a Mobius strip, and she understood why Corry was so cross about it.

  ‘But these remains weren’t located from a tip-off,’ Corry said, arms folded. ‘What does the law say about stumbling over bodies when you’re trying to put in a new conservatory?’

  ‘Well, it’s a different situation, but we still move cautiously. What we usually do in this situation is open a confidential hotline for information, while also proceeding with normal enquiries. The crime scene needs to be carefully preserved and the media handled with the utmost discretion.’

  ‘So what we’d do anyway, then.’ Corry was frosty. Gerard nudged Paula: top-blowing was imminent. ‘What about the girl? What if she wasn’t an IRA victim – what if there was a murder back then and she was buried in with the man? Do we ignore her, let her killers walk free too?’

  ‘Absolutely not. We just tread carefully.’ Tozier clicked his screen on. ‘Now, we’ve received some information that our dead man could be a Fintan McCabe. He isn’t included on the list of the official Disappeared, as the IRA never admitted responsibility, but he’s been missing since the nineties, which seems to fit the timeline we’re looking at.’ We. Our dead man. Corry wouldn’t like that one bit.

  ‘What information is this?’ she said, narrowing her eyes. ‘Are we getting access to it?’

  ‘Confidential, I’m afraid. We’re not allowed to ask for details. This is Fintan.’

  He pulled up a picture of a sandy-haired man, probably in his twenties, in one of those terrible blurry photos that were typical before the advent of megapixel camera phones. ‘His mother reported him missing in November 1993. He was a member of the IRA and active in a so-called “punishment squad” based around Ballyterrin. Police seem to have assumed he was killed in some internal feud, but his body was never found. If it’s him, that will help tie down a timeline.’

  ‘But the Commission doesn’t officially cover him?’ Corry interrupted.

  ‘Our remit is the uncovering of any remains pertaining to terrorist activity during the period of the Troubles.’

  ‘But this was the nineties. It was more or less all over by 1993 – most of the Disappeared are from the seventies.’

  Paula’s stomach lurched again as Corry repeated the year. Was the date just another coincidence, like the pendant that looked exactly the same as one she’d had? These dead bodies had gone in the ground around the same time her mother had disappeared. Her fingers curled on her pen.

  ‘Just a few months away from the ceasefires,’ said Tozier, nodding. ‘We believe paramilitary behaviour actually changed slightly in the last few months of the Troubles. They were once again more likely to hide the bodies of their victims than leave them out to be found. They wanted to show they were still strong, coming down hard on informers, but while not getting caught or knocking the peace process off course. It was a confusing time.’

  That’s what she’d always thought, that her mother had been caught up in some end-stage war, quietly disposed of. Had she been there at this farm – was that pendant Paula’s? Did she know this dead girl and man? Corry caught Paula’s eye over the table. She knew the significance of that year too. Paula looked down at her pad, where she’d scrawled meaningless scribbles, like Maggie would do if left alone with pen a
nd paper (or a wall and an eye pencil, as Paula had once found out).

  Gerard said, ‘So how do we proceed then, Mr Tozier? Can we try to identify the bodies at least? We’ve still no idea who the girl is.’

  ‘Certainly, you can proceed with that, Sergeant. Fintan McCabe’s family will need to know if it’s him. His mother is still alive – we’ll contact her right away and try to arrange an ID. But as to prosecuting anyone for his murder . . . that may be a different matter.’

  Corry heaved a huge sigh. ‘One day, we’ll live in a country where if you murder people you go to prison for it. You don’t get let out after five years and you don’t get immunity.’

  Tozier smiled thinly. ‘I know it can be hard to accept. But the main thing is for the families—’

  She cut him off. ‘Yes, the families. If it was my family I’d want to know their killers weren’t going to get off with a slap on the wrist. Excuse me, I have work to do.’

  As she swept out, Gerard curled his wrist in a mini fist-pump, muttering under his breath. ‘Get in. Hundred quid to me, that’ll help with the bloody wedding.’

  Paula watched her go, knowing that now they had a year, Corry would ask her if her mother had any connection to that place. And that she would lie about the pendant, lie to her friend and colleague, because she didn’t know what else to do. And there was no way she was giving this case up.

  Chapter Six

  Bob Hamilton and his wife Linda had lived in the same drab cul-de-sac for forty years. It wasn’t advised, when you were in the RUC. You were supposed to move around frequently, hoping to evade a shot to the head or bomb under your car, but Bob never had. Paula wondered why. Stubbornness, maybe. Even she had sold the house she’d grown up in, finally, after keeping it for so many years in case her mother walked back in one day. Paula had nightmares still about it. Why did you sell the house? I only went out for a minute. Did you forget me?

  She rang Bob’s doorbell, eyeing the arrangement of garden gnomes fishing round a small dry pond. If she’d timed it right Linda would be out. She’d volunteered at a centre for disabled children since the death of their son Ian a few months back. He’d been Paula’s age but had severe health problems. It was sad, so unbearably sad. Poor Bob. She’d spent a lot of her life hating him, sure he’d messed up the search for her mother – he’d been the lead investigator – and that it was his fault her father had been injured and left the police. She was positive he’d taken a promotion meant for PJ, his former partner, and she knew for a fact he’d suppressed the report from their neighbour, about seeing men at the house the day Margaret went missing. But she’d found out in recent years that Bob was in fact a mystery to her. For a start, he’d known something about her mother’s disappearance. More than he’d ever said, Paula was sure. The cover-up seemed to be to protect her, and hide her mother’s secrets. And now there was something else – Bob was maybe visiting Aidan in prison.

  He came to the door, shuffling in his slippers. Like an old man. Hard to imagine him and PJ as young officers, in their green RUC uniforms. All that was gone now and Bob and PJ had been swept out too. New brooms. No place for them. ‘Paula,’ he said, surprised. ‘You’re back?’

  ‘Yeah. For the wedding, you know. Got a minute?’

  ‘Come on in. Did you bring the wee one?’

  ‘She’s at Dad’s.’ Bob loved seeing Maggie, she knew, and Linda did too – they’d never have a grandchild of their own, after all – but selfishly, she wanted to talk to him without the distraction of her daughter’s endless chatter.

  Paula declined tea, wanting to get down to it. ‘I’m sorry to barge in, Bob. Thing is, I saw you earlier. At the prison. I wondered if you were . . . if it was Aidan you were seeing.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sat down carefully on a striped armchair, moving the antimacassar back into place. The sitting room was stifling, kept pin-neat for visitors that never came. ‘I visit him the odd time, aye. The young fella.’

  That was Aidan, who at thirty-four was hardly that young. Old enough to know better, for sure. ‘Why?’

  Bob thought about the answer for a long time. ‘I knew it was causing you grief, that he wouldn’t even try to fight the conviction. I thought maybe I could convince him. I know those fellas. The Republicans. There were plenty would have liked nothing better than to wipe Conlon off the map.’ Sean Conlon, the man Aidan had supposedly killed. Just out of jail, he had been a marked man when he died. He’d known too much. Bob thought his death was an old Republican score being settled. It had given Paula hope, to hear that. Just to know there was a chance Aidan hadn’t killed a man. That another person might have come along to the dank car park while Conlon was still alive. That someone else finished the job, after Aidan had left and gone staggering home. ‘I was first on scene, you know. The night Aidan’s da died. 1986.’

  ‘Were you? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘I don’t think he remembers. But I’ll never forget, that wee white face staring out at me from under the desk. His da on the floor, blood all over the place. We thought he was dead too, the wean. But not a mark on him. That was the same night I met her, too.’

  ‘Who?’ She was distracted by the image of Aidan as a small child, which never failed to squeeze her heart in a fist.

  ‘Your mother. I met her that night. The RUC Christmas do.’

  ‘Oh. Were you . . .’ She didn’t know what to ask. For a long time now, she’d been getting the feeling Bob Hamilton was haunted by her mother. She’d thought it was because he’d failed her, bungled the search for her. But maybe it was more than that. ‘You were friends?’

  ‘Ah, no now. Not friends. PJ and myself were partners then, that was all. But she came to me for help the year after, when the soldier got shot in her arms – you know about that?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Paula would have been seven or so, and she didn’t really remember. Her mother had been stopped at a checkpoint, waiting in her car, when a sniper had shot the soldier checking her licence. She’d got out and tried to help him, cradled him as he died. A young private, no more than twenty. The kind of thing that happened all the time in the eighties. But it must have made a terrible impression on her mother, because not long afterwards she’d started stealing information from her job in a solicitor’s office and passing it to Army Intelligence. Touting. Betraying. ‘What did she want, when she came to you?’

  ‘I think just someone to talk to. Your da, he’s – well, you know what he’s like. Couldn’t leave a thing be. Obsessed with the job. And she was angry, Margaret. Very angry. That someone would shoot a young fella dead in the street like that.’

  He’d said Margaret, not your mammy. As if he forgot, sometimes, who he was talking to. Paula asked cautiously, ‘Did you know what she was doing? Passing the information?’

  He hesitated, then nodded. ‘I had an idea.’ And he’d never said. He’d directed the search for her as best he could, turned it away from the truth, thrown suspicion on PJ, even though if she’d been touting, the most likely thing was she’d been taken away to be shot. All to cover up her mother’s betrayals. ‘I know you must blame me,’ said Bob hoarsely. ‘But there were reasons. I promise you that. I swore to her I wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘She knew she was going away?’

  ‘I . . .’ He swallowed hard.

  ‘Please, Bob. I don’t blame you. Not if you promised her. But I need to know. I’m close. I think maybe she got away. Please, tell me what you know.’

  He looked at his hands. Dry and chapped from gardening, the nails thick and square. ‘She knew she was in danger. They were onto her, the Provos. She thought she might have to run.’

  That made sense. She’d left a note, not knowing teenage Paula would carelessly knock it down behind the worktop and not find it for twenty years. ‘But why did she not come back? Or send word?’

  ‘Because. She didn’t get away. That’s what I think, anyway. They
came for her before she could run.’

  ‘Oh.’ The tick of the clock was very loud. ‘She’s dead? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘I don’t know. How could I? None of us does.’

  So Bob had stayed quiet, just in case her mother had made it away, wondering all the time was she dead and he’d done the wrong thing keeping her secrets. And now he was visiting Aidan, trying to help him too. ‘This thing with Sean Conlon. You have names, for the people who were after him?’ Bob was silent. There was more that he knew, she was sure of it. ‘You’re not going to tell me.’

  ‘Ach, Paula. I can’t. It’s dangerous. These fellas, they don’t mess around, even now. It’s being looked into. That’s all you need to know. I just thought, maybe if the lad knew there was some hope . . .’

  She knew there was no use arguing. Bob, in his quiet way, was implacable. Doing his best to protect her family, as he had for twenty years.

  She thought of Bob and Linda in this neat, empty house, taking care of Ian for so many years, following the rules, living quiet lives. What if all this brought danger to their door? Was it worth it to find out the truth? She’d already lost so much. What if when she found it, it was more than she could handle?

  On her way out to the car, she saw she had a missed call from Corry and buzzed into the office. She’d left while they were all still working, hoping to chat to Bob before Linda came home. ‘Yep?’

  ‘Good news. We’ve spoken to Mairead Wallace and she’s agreed to travel over to try and identify the bodies. Asked a lot of questions about the girl.’

  ‘So . . . she must think it’s her sister?’

  ‘Maybe. Couldn’t get much from her, though. She says she left home years back, got out as fast as she could, lost touch. I’d say she feels sore guilty about that now.’

  Paula knew that feeling. She too had left Ballyterrin as soon as she was able, hiding herself in a big London university, running away from the sadness that threatened to sink her like a leaking boat. ‘What about the dead man? Is it definitely this McCabe?’