The Killing House

by Claire McGowan

  ‘Your man Edward. Found an obituary for him in The Times.’

  ‘When?’ Her voice was croaky, strangled.

  ‘Back in 2006.’

  ‘Wh-what happened?’

  ‘Car bomb, outside his house in Croydon. He survived a while but pneumonia got him in the end. His ones must have put this in – father was a major or something in the Army. There’s more.’

  ‘Oh?’ She couldn’t bear to ask it. Was my mother with him? Did she die too?

  ‘In the obit – I’ll scan it over to you – it says he leaves a wife and child. No names.’

  ‘Do you think . . . ?’

  ‘Aye, it’s possible it was her.’ Her mother, and the child she had been carrying when she fled Ballyterrin. Paula’s half-sibling. It seemed insane.

  ‘There’s no other family left, I take it?’ It was too much to hope for.

  ‘His ones are long dead now. But I’ll keep digging. Somebody’ll have known them during that time, be able to look at a photo. Sorry for the bad news.’

  ‘It’s OK. Thank you, Davey.’

  He rang off with another coughing fit. So, her mother’s lover was dead. A man she’d never met, obviously, but all the same she found she was trembling. She shoved the phone into her trouser pocket and tucked her hands under her armpits to stop them shaking. This was stupid. She’d thought she was ready – all those years with no answers, the day the police had dug up the garden looking for a body, the three dead women she’d had to try and identify over the years, none of them her mother. But it turned out you couldn’t ever be ready to hear that someone you loved was dead. Your mind could try, but your body, your heart and stomach and heaving lungs, they would always get the news like a physical blow.

  ‘You OK, Maguire?’ Gerard was coming up behind her, filling the hallway with his overpowering cologne and hulking shoulders. She remembered she had to ask him about the case Maeve mentioned, but for now everything was focused on finding Mairead.

  ‘Oh, yeah. Any news?’

  ‘We got the results back on that DNA sample from Mairead Wallace.’ He held up a sheet of paper. ‘Let’s go find Herself.’

  Corry was staring at the papers lying on the table in front of her. ‘This is for definite?’

  ‘Far as they know.’ Gerard scratched at the back of his head. Across the room, Avril was on the phone, calling off the search for Carly, co-ordinating with the search teams looking for Mairead. The wedding was in a few days, and this type of case wasn’t what they needed. The kind that was like ever increasing circles, answers turning into questions and spinning away.

  Corry shook her head. ‘So Mairead’s a direct familial match with our Jane Doe. I suppose that explains why she wouldn’t give the sample.’

  That was what the results said. A close relative, but exactly of what type they couldn’t be sure. Paula wasn’t surprised; ever since she’d seen the likeness between the dead girl and Carly Jones she’d suspected as much. She said, ‘Does this mean Mairead lied? It is Aisling Wallace in the morgue after all?’

  Corry shook her head, still staring at the paper as if willing it to give a different answer. ‘Not necessarily. This, the reconstruction – none of it’s conclusive. And Mairead couldn’t ID the body.’

  Couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Paula was frustrated. ‘Then who else could it be? It must be her, surely.’

  ‘We should visit the mother again, see if we can get anything more out of her. Monaghan, do you want to take that? See if you can charm the wee girls that work there? You used to be good at that sort of thing.’

  He stifled a groan. ‘The old folks’ home? Seriously?’ He saw her face. ‘Of course, ma’am.’

  Corry turned back to the papers. ‘Even if it is Aisling, doesn’t mean Mairead lied. I see it all the time, people make the wrong ID. They don’t want to accept someone’s dead, so they see things that aren’t there. I’d like to also compare this result with Carly’s DNA. A fresh sample would be better. Wright?’

  Avril came over sharpish. Paula saw how tired she looked. The run-up to weddings was stressful. She’d worked herself into the ground before her own, scared to face the truth of what it meant to finally tie herself to Aidan forever. Then, of course, it hadn’t even happened. ‘Carly’s been discharged from hospital, ma’am. We’ve sent officers to take her to a different safe house.’

  Corry looked at her watch. ‘Let’s send someone to swab her for DNA. We’ve pussy-footed around that family for too long, and Mairead’s been taken because of it. So get cracking, everyone, lots to do. I think we better face the press now – the more we delay the more chance Wallace will get away. Maguire, you staying? Or do you have pressing cartoons to watch at home?’

  It was late, already after six. Paula sighed. Of course she was staying – sheer guilt would have seen to that, if nothing else. Every time she thought about Mairead her stomach lurched. She’d promised. And still this had happened. The way the woman’s hands shook when she talked about her brother. They had to find her. ‘I’ll come. Let me just ring Dad and Pat.’ Maggie would be fine for another night, but it was this kind of thing which had eventually made her leave Ballyterrin. While she was here, every case was so personal she often couldn’t let them go, and it wasn’t fair on Maggie. She had to go back to London, whatever happened here. If she stayed in this town she would never get out from under its shadow.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next day Paula was up early, back in the office. It was buzzing, the search for Mairead and Paddy Wallace at full gear, phone calls coming in from the press who were avid to know how on earth they’d cocked this operation up quite so badly. She’d been turning it over in her mind all through the sleepless night. How could two people just disappear like that? Then there was Maeve’s question – why had Paddy surfaced now? Surely they would find him, now he had his sister in tow. She made a mental note to ask about Gerard’s case, and check up on Paddy Wallace’s old associates. No fans of the police, there was a good chance some of them would be helping him hide. She went to Corry’s office and knocked, expecting to get her orders for the day. Tozier was there too, sticking his oar in no doubt. Today he wore a jumper over a striped shirt, and sensible trousers.

  ‘Is there anything . . . What’s the matter?’ In the room an atmosphere, a charge. Something to do with her? She couldn’t place it.

  Corry was stony-faced. ‘Paula, there’s no good way to say this . . .’

  Her knees were weak. She was sinking down. What was it – Aidan, her dad, Maggie? No, she’d just left Maggie safe with Pat, it couldn’t be that.

  ‘We had a tip-off via the Commission this morning,’ said Declan Tozier. He looked uncomfortable with the sudden emotion in the room, standing awkwardly by Corry’s desk. ‘Maybe you’d like to sit down, Dr Maguire?’

  ‘I’ll stand.’ She threw the comment at him, eyes on Corry. ‘Just tell me, Helen.’

  ‘This informant – obviously we don’t know who they were – claimed your mother’s buried there too. On the Red Road farm.’

  She waited to see how deep the wound was going to go. Nothing. She felt numb. ‘Did they say anything else?’

  Tozier spoke again. ‘They said she was brought there in 1993, abducted from your house as suspected, then kept and interrogated there for several days. They – well, they’ve given us quite a specific area to search, Dr Maguire. If the information’s true we should know in a day or two.’

  She tried to picture it. Old bones, coming up dirty with soil. Strips of tattered clothes attached. What had she been wearing that day? Paula had never known; she’d left for school before her mother was dressed, but it was usually some kind of suit for work, or baggy jeans and a sweatshirt in the house. Nineties mum clothes. Nothing special.

  But still, she couldn’t picture it at all. ‘Have you told my dad yet?’

  ‘Not yet. I felt we shoul
d bring you both in and—’

  She cut Tozier off. ‘Let me do it. Did they seem . . . credible? This informant?’

  A glance went between the two. Corry spoke gently. ‘They knew details we hadn’t released about the other two bodies. That it was the barn used for burials and how they were placed, even.’

  ‘Did you get a name for her, the dead girl?’

  ‘No. No name was given, sadly.’

  An awkward silence settled. Tozier swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. ‘Dr Maguire, if there’s anything we can do – we have counsellors, teams of people used to supporting families in these kinds of—’

  ‘I’m fine.’ She cut him off again. No time for politeness now. ‘Could you give me a wee minute with DI Corry, please?’

  He went, casting backward looks as if irritated to be put out of the room. ‘He’s just doing his job,’ said Corry neutrally.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know. But I’m not some outsider. No need to use the special voice and the tissues, for God’s sake.’ She saw with some disgust they’d placed a pastel-coloured box on the table, one pulled out suggestively. For what? She wasn’t going to cry. Why would she cry when there was an answer, finally? Maybe, anyway. ‘The pendant,’ she said impatiently. ‘The one from the girl’s body. I had one just like it in the nineties.’

  Corry stared at her, frowning. ‘How can that be?’

  ‘I don’t know. I lost it, I think. I can’t remember when. Everything was topsy-turvy that autumn, when Mum went.’

  ‘Where did you get it from?’

  ‘On holiday in Kerry, I think. I was into all that sappy stuff. Dolphins, kittens, cute animals. My dad bought it for me.’ She could remember the feel of it in her hand, chunky and cold. She’d been like a dolphin herself back then, plunging fearless into the cold Atlantic waves. Her father was not a demonstrative man – her mother sorted the presents, always had – so it was a surprise to receive it on her thirteenth birthday a few weeks after their holiday. Just a wee something extra, PJ had said, embarrassed. Know you like those wee things.

  Then of course a month after that her mother was gone, and everything else was forgotten, and her normal teenage world of necklaces and TV and sleepovers with Saoirse was abruptly shattered. She hadn’t missed the necklace, couldn’t remember when she’d last seen it.

  ‘So . . . how could it have ended up there? Have you been to that farm before?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I’m sure I haven’t.’

  ‘Ever have a burglary, something like that?’

  ‘No. Dad was a cop, you know. The place was locked up like Fort Knox. Anyway it wasn’t worth much, it was just a wee thing.’

  ‘So maybe . . .’

  ‘She could have taken it,’ Paula heard herself say, and as she did she knew it made sense. ‘My mother. She could have taken this with her when she went. I didn’t notice at the time it was gone but . . . she could have.’

  Corry digested this. ‘When she “went”? I thought you didn’t—’

  ‘I know,’ Paula interrupted. God, she was tired of this. How could this still be going on, twenty years after her mother had been lost? When she’d been ready to give up, get on with her life, why were these clues surfacing, the note and the pendant and now this tip-off? ‘Listen. Last year, I found something.’

  And she explained it all: the renovations to her kitchen, the note the builders had found down the back of the worktops, knocked there by her younger self all those years ago, careless and unseeing.

  Silence. Corry had stopped pacing and stood staring, her arms folded. ‘She left a note.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know if – I don’t know if they still came and took her anyway. There were men at the house that day. Our neighbour said, but the report . . . well, it doesn’t matter. So she might have got away, she might not. If this pendant was found in a place they used for interrogations, and someone’s saying they killed her there . . .’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough if it’s true or not. But this pendant – you should have told me. You never know, it might be the evidence we need to reopen your mother’s case.’

  ‘Do we have to do that?’ Paula said quickly. ‘It’s just I haven’t told anyone about the note. You know, Dad and Pat. If they found out . . .’

  If Paula’s mother had got away – if she was alive, maybe living in London – then Pat and PJ’s marriage was invalid, their hard-won happiness destroyed. And she couldn’t do that to them. Corry understood. ‘OK. We’ll keep it under wraps for now. It’s not really enough to go on anyway – like you said, these necklaces are pretty common. But you can’t hide these things from me, Paula.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure. And, you know, the case—’

  ‘You wanted to stay on it.’ Corry wasn’t even cross. ‘I see. Well, even put together there’s no real proof. But we’ll look, of course. They’ll start digging tomorrow. You realise what this means, though?’

  She nodded. ‘No more investigations.’ The law was very clear on that point – if remains were uncovered because of a tip-off via the Commission, they were not allowed to use that information to prosecute. Their other two dead bodies, found at the same site, might even fall under that remit too. The chance to prosecute their killer, or killers, was perhaps gone.

  ‘We can try to find out who the girl is, but that might be all. I know that goes contrary to your nature, Paula. It goes contrary to all our natures – Monaghan’s got some choice things to say on the subject. But it’s what we have to do – the price we have to pay for all this being over. We’ll look for a name to put on that girl’s grave, and that’s about all we can do.’

  ‘I know that.’ She’d known it in practice, of course, since the law came into being, but now it seemed to settle into her how deeply wrong it was. They were the police. How could they find a murdered girl and not put anyone in jail for it? It went against the order of the world.

  ‘And your mother – if she is there, and we find her, we can’t do anything either. We can bury her, that’s all. We can give you answers. I know you’ve been looking all this time. I know you think she went to London.’

  Paula looked away. Corry saw too much, always had. But, she wanted to say. A psychic told me she was alive, and over the water. But, Edward got out alive, and he was living with a woman and child in London. That could have been her! It could have! She was pregnant when she disappeared. Another horrible thought came. ‘If they do find her – can you tell me first? There’s things that my . . . my dad doesn’t need to know, maybe.’

  ‘We’ll have to see. You know I can’t offer special treatment, Paula.’

  Did she know it? She stared at the carpet. It needed a good vacuuming. Who was doing the office cleaning these days? ‘Are you sure it’s even true, this tip-off? I mean, everyone knows about this law, right? So if you wanted to slow down this investigation, and stop us finding out who’s in that grave, wouldn’t it make sense to phone in a false tip? They probably know I’m working on it. Or at least enough about the case to make it credible – everyone thought the IRA came for her, back then.’

  Corry looked at her patiently. ‘It could be that. We’ll know soon enough, like I said. If you want to hang onto that belief till you know something concrete, that’s OK. In the meantime you should go and talk to your father. This is something at least, isn’t it? Even if she’s . . . you told me once you just wanted to know. Either way.’

  ‘Right.’ It was something, but all the same the idea made the bottom of her stomach hollow out, and she realised that when people said that they just wanted answers, they must be kidding themselves. As long as you didn’t know for sure, there was hope, and hope was like bindweed holding up the crumbling walls of her life. Without it, she didn’t know who she’d be. ‘I guess I’m off the case now, then?’

  Corry made a face. ‘Officially. You can keep doing background stuff, if it’ll stop
you haring off like a madwoman, but keep your head down. No private investigations. Deal?’

  ‘OK. Deal.’

  They broke new ground at the farm at first light, a grey Irish dawn, rain sleeting down on the diggers and workers in their high-vis jackets. June in Ireland. Paula had gone to see it start, her hands shoved deep in her trench coat, red hair damp through as she watched the clods of soil being turned up. Declan Tozier was there too, strands of dark hair plastered to his head with the rain, his glasses steamed up. He wore a high-vis jacket with the logo of the Commission on it, sensible and dull, and Paula was internally mocking him to keep from thinking about what was going on.

  ‘You sure you want to be here? We’ll tell you as soon as we know anything.’

  ‘I just needed to see it begin.’ How long had she thought of this moment – someone to take her seriously, someone to actually look for her mother? Say that she’d been a person who mattered, who was worth searching for even twenty years on? It meant a lot, she realised now. ‘I won’t watch all of it.’ Because they might turn something up – a bone, a shred of cloth – and then what would she do? She looked away from him, blaming him for all of this, knowing that was unfair.

  He took off his glasses and polished them on his jumper. ‘I know it’s hard about your case, that this might affect the investigation. I’m sorry. The police officers we work with often find it difficult. And with your witness missing as well.’

  Paula sighed, relenting. ‘It was all my fault. I persuaded Mairead to go and meet her brother and now look. He’s got her.’

  ‘She knew the risks. It was worth it to her to get her daughter safe, I’m sure of it.’

  She looked at him from the corner of her eye, surprised at his perspicacity. ‘How many of these have you done?’ She nodded to the diggers, the Commission’s own.

  ‘Five. We’re still looking for one – not sure if the information was bad or they just couldn’t remember exactly where the burial was or what. That happens, you know. People can’t always remember. It was a long time ago.’