The Killing House

by Claire McGowan

  ‘We can’t. Paddy’s not like that. Once he has someone, he never forgives them. Never.’

  ‘Paddy doesn’t have to know.’

  He passed a hand over his unshaven face. ‘He’ll know we let you go.’

  ‘Say I got away. Make it look like you didn’t tie the ropes right or something.’

  He was considering it. Margaret began to wonder if she had the strength to keep running, to get up and make it to that road in the distance where the cars moved along like toys. Aidan O’Hara had loved wee cars. Until his daddy got shot in front of him, and now he didn’t love anything much. Maybe this man had done that. ‘You’ve killed people,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you have. But I’m just a wife. I have a wee girl. What difference does it make if I live? The war’s over. None of this will matter soon.’

  ‘He’ll find out.’

  ‘I’m telling you he doesn’t have to.’

  Sean seemed to think about it for a long time. The light was low, shading his eyes. Afternoon. She had to get help before it was dark or she’d be running about these fields all night, scared and lost. It didn’t bear thinking about. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I know you’re not a bad man. You can’t be. It’s just . . . these things are hard to get out of, once you’re in. I know that.’

  Maybe it was this that swung it. Or maybe he’d always have done it. She’d never know. He pushed her roughly on the shoulder, and she almost fell on her face in the dirt. ‘For feck’s sake. Go then. Run to your fancy man. But listen – don’t show your face here again, you hear? Not in this town. Not in this country. You need to be gone and gone for good. I’ll tell Paddy we shot you and buried you. That’s the only way. Otherwise he’ll come after you forever. Do you understand?’

  ‘But . . . I have a family . . .’

  ‘You should have thought of that before you did what you did. I hear even a word you’re alive, I’ll be paying them a wee visit. Your husband, your wee girl. You understand me?’

  She was trembling. He was giving her life, but saying she could never see Paula again. ‘She’ll think I’m dead.’ She’d never know what had happened. She’d only know her mother had not been there when she arrived home from school one day. The note, maybe, would explain something, but she’d have so many questions. She was her father’s daughter in that respect.

  Sean was looking back and forth towards the farm, frantic now. ‘For feck’s sake, go. Go.’ He pushed her again and she winced.

  She would die here if she stayed. She would die, and maybe they’d hide her body, like that poor woman in Belfast back in the seventies, and no one would ever know what had become of her. Or she could get to her feet now and run, and never see Paula again, and know that her family would be searching for her while she ran to ground like a rat. That was the choice. Live, or die. Leave her family, or condemn them all to death. Margaret thought of the child in her belly, and she stumbled to her feet. She ran. Across the field, slipping and sliding in the mud, waiting every second to feel the bullet she was sure was coming, be knocked off her feet by it, see her own blood run into the red soil.

  Voices behind her. Men, shouting. Margaret did not look back. She just kept running.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘Package for you.’ Gerard chucked the manila envelope down on Paula’s desk. She’d crawled into the office with a stabbing headache attacking her temples: bloody Maeve. The woman didn’t know the meaning of ‘just one drink’.

  She reached out to stop it skidding to the floor. ‘For me? I don’t even work here.’

  ‘Well, it’s got your name on it.’ And it had, etched in a bold hand with sharpie marker.

  Paula took it dubiously. ‘These all get screened, yeah?’

  ‘Course, they go through a metal detector.’ Another precaution that wouldn’t be needed on the mainland but which here was routine, same with the reinforced walls that surrounded the station and the checkpoints you had to go through to get in the door. In London, even in the areas of highest knife crime, you could still walk into the station off the street. She shook the package gently, hearing something shift about. Cautiously, she tore it open and out slid a cassette tape. Nothing else inside.

  Gerard was still watching. ‘Someone made you a retro mix tape, Maguire?’

  ‘As if you even know what a tape is, all the age of you. Do we have a machine in here?’

  ‘Oh aye, we’re still using the old-fashioned ones. Budget cuts. Go in the wee listening room. Wonder what it is?’

  Paula looked at the small rectangle. She remembered the brand of cassette from the nineties, when she’d recorded songs she liked off the radio, missing the starts and ends and misjudging the length of the tape so she’d end up with only three seconds of Take That before it cut out. Long before Spotify or iPads. Who would still be using tapes now? It seemed innocuous, with its brown tape spooling inside the clear cover – no writing on the insert card – but all the same she had a bad feeling about it.

  She took it into the AV room, which was empty, and spent a few moments figuring out how to work the equipment. She put the large foam earphones over her head and pressed play, ready to hear whatever it was.

  Nothing at first. Then the harsh buzz of static. Then a man’s voice, Ballyterrin accent. ‘State your name and charges for the tape.’

  A sound like someone trying not to cry, maybe. Breathing hard.

  Same man. ‘State your name and charges, I said!’

  A woman’s voice, faltering. ‘My name is . . . Margaret Maguire.’

  Paula froze. The blood stopped in her veins. That voice. She hadn’t heard that voice in twenty years. Paula, get up for school now.

  ‘I’m charged with passing information to the British Army. I am an informer.’

  Paula dropped the headphones to the ground and rushed out.

  Corry was all business. ‘It came in the post?’

  ‘Looked like it. Normal stamps.’ They’d already retrieved the envelope from the recycling bin, but it had been touched by so many people that prints were unlikely to be useful. The seal was a sticky one, so saliva was also not likely. It had been posted in the main Ballyterrin office, by the looks of it. Corry had sent someone chasing CCTV already but there were so many people in and out of there each day, it was a long shot. ‘Who would send something like this?’ Why, was what she really meant. Why, after all this time?

  Corry said, ‘We know IRA punishment squads often taped the confessions of their victims. A few of the families have been sent tapes like this. It’s not so unusual. Though that was a long time ago, of course. How much did you hear?’

  ‘Just her name and her . . . what they charged her with.’

  ‘It’s definitely her?’

  Paula nodded. There was no way to explain how it had felt to suddenly hear her mother’s voice, after twenty years of silence. Like she’d been in the room with her, alive and breathing. ‘She sounded afraid. Like she’d been crying. I couldn’t listen to the rest.’

  ‘I don’t blame you. I think someone will have to go through it, though. And you’ll have to inform your father, of course.’

  She nodded. That would be the worst part. ‘Someone wants me to think she’s dead. That’s it, isn’t it? This, the tip-off about her body . . .’

  ‘It certainly seems that way. But they weren’t her bones in the grave. We have to remember that. She wasn’t buried there. And if someone wants us to stop looking, that means we absolutely keep on looking, because there’s something to find.’

  Paula had a sudden terrible thought. ‘What if she is out there somewhere, alive, and this just stirs it all up? What if I send them after her again?’

  Corry sighed. She was twiddling her pen behind her desk, and she looked tired. ‘Paula. I said to you years ago that you might not like what you find, if you keep going with this. You seemed determined not to stop.’

>   ‘I can’t stop.’

  ‘I know that. I’ve not even tried to convince you, have I? But yes, if you poke around in things buried long ago, the earth starts to shift. You know that.’

  She nodded unhappily. ‘I can’t believe someone had this all that time.’ The thought of her mother’s screams, her agony and fear, imprinted on that simple brown tape, from so long ago. She shuddered. ‘It’s so cruel. Such a cruel thing to do.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s the hallmark of men like Paddy Wallace. You’re on his radar now, and that makes you a target.’

  An even worse thought struck her. ‘Maggie?’

  ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. Unfortunately, we get a lot of death threats here, and this isn’t even a threat.’

  So what was the point in sending it? Information, kindly meant after all this time? A warning? Or proof – look, we had her. We killed her. You better stop looking, because there’s nothing left to find. She wished she knew.

  ‘What should I do?’ she said to Corry. ‘I mean now? Today?’ It was Avril and Gerard’s wedding tomorrow, meaning the station would be stretched even more, every available officer looking for Mairead.

  ‘Honestly, I don’t know. We’re pursuing all the leads we can. We don’t know for sure this is from Wallace, or even a threat. Could be someone trying to help.’

  Paula sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem right, going to the wedding, when Mairead’s still out there.’

  ‘Life goes on, Maguire. In this job, it has to, or we’d never enjoy ourselves at all. You go on home. I’ll ask a patrol to swing round your way a few times tonight, but otherwise, there’s not much we can do.’

  Paula turned off the borrowed computer, put on her jacket, and started making her way to the door. Already she was recovering from the shock. Making plans – what to feed Maggie for dinner, what time she’d need to be up to do her hair for the wedding . . .

  ‘Avril?’ She stopped by her friend’s desk, surprised to see her in a pool of light, bent over her computer. ‘Er, aren’t you meant to be off today?’ Avril was in jeans and a jumper, as if she’d just popped by, and Paula didn’t remember seeing her in all day before this.

  Avril squinted at her screen. ‘I was. I don’t know – I was at the house, and everyone was just talking and talking, all this jawing about the ceremony and the hairdresser and who’s doing what tomorrow, and I said I left my wallet at work then I just . . . got in the car and came here.’

  Paula leaned against the partition. ‘Ah, the old night-before-the-wedding freak-out.’

  Avril put her head in her hands, groaning. ‘Oh God, I’m so nervous. How do you know? That you’re making the right decision?’

  Paula wasn’t sure she had it in her to talk Avril down from a fit of pre-wedding jitters. Clearly, she didn’t know about the tape delivery. ‘Everyone feels nervous before their wedding.’

  ‘But it’s not just that. This wedding, it’s been a disaster from start to finish. My mammy’s hardly speaking to me; she keeps crying every time anyone mentions the ceremony. Auntie Linda asked me did I mind that it wouldn’t be valid in God’s eyes. Gerard’s mammy keeps slipping me pictures of the saints and asking me who they are. It’s like Top Trumps only with miracles. I can’t take it.’

  Paula tried not to smile. ‘Serves you right – you had to be progressive and have a mixed marriage.’

  ‘We should have just eloped. Even to Rome. I’d do it, just to spite Mammy. And Daddy’s curate is assisting with the ceremony and he’s fighting over every word of it with Gerard’s cousin. And I never liked him anyway, his breath smells like egg sandwiches.’

  ‘Las Vegas?’ Paula suggested. ‘I’ll drive you to the airport. Only I don’t think Maggie will ever forgive me if she doesn’t get to wear her special wedding hairband and shoes.’

  Avril gave a watery smile. ‘She’s a wee dote. It will be nice, having everyone there. Even the boss is coming from London.’

  Paula kept her face carefully neutral. ‘Oh, Guy’s coming in the end, is he? I thought with Tess expecting so soon . . .’

  ‘He said he wouldn’t miss it. He’ll go back the next day.’

  ‘Lovely.’ She pasted on a smile.

  ‘Fiacra’s coming too. I was worried he might not.’ Avril coloured. Their former colleague Fiacra had been in love with her around the time she and Gerard got together, which had caused some ructions in the team. He was now back with the Gardai, working down south somewhere. ‘He’s bringing some girl with him, Gisela is her name. Brazilian.’

  ‘He’s a new one on his arm every week, the same boy. And your dress came in OK?’

  Avril softened romantically at the mention of her dress. ‘Oh, it’s just beautiful, so it is. Lace. Silk. I love it.’

  ‘See? I bet you want to wear that, no matter what else might be going on.’

  ‘But, Paula – is it stupid? My ones and Gerard’s – I don’t think they’ll ever get on. Is it going to be this way always, fighting at Christmas, and I don’t know, christenings . . .’ She groaned again. ‘That’s another thing. What religion would the kids even be?’

  ‘Come on now, Wright, no need to be worrying about non-existent weans, is there? Monaghan’s a big eejit but you love him, a blind person could see that. I could see that way back then.’

  ‘Could you?’

  ‘Course I could. It was inevitable, the two of you. And times have changed. If Martin McGuinness can shake hands with the Queen, your and Gerard’s families can be civil to each other.’

  Avril took a big, shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry. I just . . . I am having a pre-wedding freak-out, I think.’

  Paula nodded knowledgably. ‘You’ll be gorgeous. It’ll be a great day, and soon you’ll look back and laugh at all these wee problems. Every wedding is the same. Everyone just has to stick their oar in.’ Once again she cursed Saoirse and Pat for talking her into her own failed wedding. All that money wasted. That stupid dress. She had loved it too, secretly, though she would never have admitted it. But she’d known deep in her bones marriage was not something she could trust to. How could she, when her own parents’ marriage had been a lie, when her mother had been carrying so many secrets?

  As she thought about it, she made a decision: she wasn’t going to tell her father about the tape. What was the point, when it still didn’t prove anything? It would only cause more heartache, rake up more secrets. She’d carry this burden by herself.

  She reached over and switched off Avril’s computer. ‘Come on. Let’s get you home before your mammy sends out a search party.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Paula had chosen navy for the wedding. She thought it suggested a middle ground between ‘tragic Sicilian widow’ and ‘flirtatious unmarried mother’, one eye on other people’s husbands, falling out of a strapless frock. Going alone to weddings was not something she relished. She looked at herself in the mirror, her red hair neatly arranged for once, tucked up under a little navy hat Saoirse had presented her with the other day, bits of lace and flowery strands hanging off it. ‘A fascinator,’ her friend had explained.

  Heels, in deference to the day. Flats to put on as soon as the pictures were over. Maggie would be there for the ceremony and dinner, then Pat and PJ would come to take her home. It was the first wedding Paula had been to since her own cancelled one, and she still couldn’t bear to think about that. How stupid she’d felt, standing there in her pouffey wedding dress, seeing everyone she knew through the stained glass doors of the church. Then the moment when she spotted the police car in the street, and Guy was there. The brief second when she’d wondered if he’d come for her, to finally declare himself. Then Aidan hauled away, arrested. Stupid. So stupid. And today she was going to have to sit through a wedding without him, and Guy there too. She took a deep breath and resolved to drink heavily to get through the day.

  A cross-community
wedding was hardly rare in these modern, enlightened times, even in Northern Ireland. All the same the atmosphere in the church was strained and hysterical. ‘No Mass then,’ Pat had said out of the side of her mouth when they’d discussed the ecumenical service, as if this meant they somehow wouldn’t be legally wed. Paula slipped into a pew about halfway up, not sure whether to sit on the bride or groom’s side. She’d known them both for exactly the same amount of time, since that day she’d stumbled into the small office of the cross-border missing persons team and met Guy Brooking and her life had changed, though she didn’t know it then. She saw familiar faces – Bob and his wife Linda Hamilton up near the front, with the family. Today would be hard for them, no doubt, thinking of Ian, their son. Gerard’s mammy and daddy were both as red-faced as him, his mother upholstered in some kind of shiny fabric like an angry sofa. She too had bits of leaf and feather hanging from her head; it seemed to be de rigueur. Saoirse and Dave were sandwiched into a pew already, no chance of sitting with them. Saoirse was wearing an empire-line dress, though she was hardly pregnant at all yet. Paula gave her a wave. Looking round the church, full of flowers and smiling faces, the thought of Mairead Wallace pulled her down like a current. Ciaran’s comment needled in her mind: it’s maybe not what you think. She’d no idea what he could mean; Mairead had been terrified of her brother. She wouldn’t have gone with him willingly.

  ‘There’s Mr Bob and Auntie Seer-sha,’ said Maggie loudly. She was already rooting about under the church pews, her wedding headband bent out of all recognition.

  ‘Sshh now,’ whispered Paula.

  ‘Mummy,’ she said, with no reduction in volume. ‘Will Daddy be here today?’

  Oh no. Not now. ‘Why do you say that, pet?’

  ‘We were here when you had your big nice dress and then Daddy went away and I cried and I couldn’t wear my new shoes.’

  Paula sighed. She’d hoped Maggie, then only two, would remember nothing about that terrible day. ‘It’s not here, pet. That was a different place. Look, how many people can you count in each row?’