Those We Left Behind

by Stuart Neville

  Ciaran cried out at the shock of it. Flanagan struggled further out, her feet disturbing loose sand. The next wave reached her calves, already sending shivers through her back.

  Thomas got to his feet, shaking water from his head, his entire body quaking. His breathing hard and ragged.

  Flanagan knew the signs. The first stage, hyperventilation, followed soon by a deadening of the limbs as the body conserved heat by pulling blood to the core.

  Ciaran up on his knees, Thomas looming over him. Another wave took Ciaran down as Thomas grabbed for him, and they sprawled in the water once more.

  The same wave washed around Flanagan’s thighs, so cold, so cold, but she pushed on, they were so close, if she could get between them . . .

  Ciaran burst from the water, filled his lungs with air and reached down for his brother. He grabbed one handful of hair, another of collar, and hauled Thomas up.

  Flanagan said, ‘Stop,’ but the word was choked in her throat by a wave that submerged her to the groin. She felt her body’s temperature drop, cold to the bones of her. God knew how the brothers felt, in up to their chests now.

  Ciaran’s eyes met hers.

  ‘Stop,’ she said.

  Ciaran pulled Thomas back through the tide, further out, each wave taking more and more of them until only his shoulders showed above the water.

  Thomas still in his grasp, spitting and coughing.

  As Flanagan watched from only feet away, Ciaran wrapped his left arm around Thomas’s neck, kept hold of his hair with his right hand. He pushed Thomas under, held him there.

  Thomas’s hands above the water, flailing.

  Flanagan reached for them, but her fingers touched something else, something that clung to her hand. Sodden paper, the ink running and smearing. The letter that had remained hidden like the shameful secret it was for seven years.

  Then a wave took her, pushed her back to shore. Salt water filled her mouth and nose. Her feet lost contact with the sand, and she prayed to God she would not drown. She prayed to see her children again. And Alistair, poor Alistair.

  Her knees ploughed into sand, then her hands, and she pushed up, face out of the water, coughing, hacking, her lungs feeling ready to burst from her chest. She got to her feet, staggered towards the beach, fell again, vomited in the surf.

  She turned and looked back out to sea.

  Ciaran’s head above water, Thomas’s hands clawing at his face.

  66

  CIARAN’S FEET ARE lifted from the sand, his body weightless.

  Thomas’s nails tear at his skin.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  Thomas kicks, tries to throw his body one way then the other.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  He is cold deep down to his centre, cold like he has never felt before.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  He would wish for it to be different, but he knows now that wishes are useless, worth no more than the air expelled in their making.

  His feet touch the bottom once more, and he pushes back, further out. A wave rolls over his head, the cold complete and total now, every part of him racked with it.

  His mouth is free of the water again and he gulps air, so hard and fast.

  Another wave and he breathes salt water. It hurts.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  Thomas isn’t moving any more, floating like a doll in Ciaran’s arms.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  The shakes have stopped. Ciaran’s arms and legs are heavy, like stone, dragging him down. It hurts. The cold hurts.

  Ciaran doesn’t mind.

  Bright sparks inside his head, flashes so brilliant they burn away everything he knows.

  Ciaran doesn’t . . .

  67

  FLANAGAN CRAWLED, SPITTING bile on the wet sand. Shivering so hard she could barely control her limbs.

  She pulled the memory from the muddy chaos of her mind.

  First aid. Hypothermia. Once out of the water, remove clothing immediately.

  She struggled to her feet, pulled at her waterlogged jacket. It clung to her, refused to come away. She pulled again and it peeled off like icy skin.

  The sand hit her hard as she fell, kicking the air from her straining lungs. Shoes off, toeing them from her feet. Reached down for the socks, pulled them away. Unbuttoned her trousers. They stuck to her legs, and she writhed and kicked until they were past her thighs, down to her ankles, then off. She pulled her sweater over her head.

  Cold turned to pain, and she howled against the wind.

  Flanagan got to her feet once more, looked back to the waves, searched for a sign of them. No head above the surf, no gasping for air. No hand reaching from the water. Both of them lost in the rolling grey. A violent shiver almost felled her again and she stumbled and tripped towards the channel with the stream and Constable Meehan’s blood.

  She found him there, lying on his back, the sand around him turning dark reddish-brown.

  Flanagan fell to her knees beside him, fumbled for the radio fixed to his stab vest, hit the panic button, signalled every officer within range to come now. She remembered her training, how the microphone would remain open for a few seconds. Location, she’d been taught. Repeat the location over and over in case the GPS couldn’t find them.

  ‘Beach,’ she said through chattering teeth, knowing her voice crackled in some operator’s earpiece. ‘Behind the house. Find the car. The house. Follow the path. The beach.’

  She could say no more, her lungs unable to support the words. She felt for Meehan’s throat, her fingers slick in the blood, too numb to feel a pulse even if it was there.

  His eyelids flickered. He gasped. Alive. Alive, thank God.

  And his body warm.

  Flanagan searched his pockets until she found a handkerchief. She pressed it against the wound in his neck.

  She wrapped her body around his, drew the warmth from him, knowing the last of it might be draining away.

  68

  MEEHAN LIVED.

  Flanagan would be thankful for that for the rest of her days.

  While they transferred him from Downe Hospital in Downpatrick to the Royal Victoria in Belfast, she spent twelve hours in A&E at Downe, swaddled in heated blankets.

  She had wanted to stay on the beach until they found the bodies, but the paramedics wouldn’t allow it. The shivering eased after four hours, but the nurses in the A&E ward insisted that she stay wrapped up as they brought her cup after cup of hot sugary tea. One kind nurse tended to the wound on Flanagan’s temple while she drank. Then the cut on her arm where the knife had snagged her sleeve. No stitches, nothing deep enough. They wouldn’t let her sleep while they observed for signs of concussion.

  Six hours after she left the beach, a sergeant came to the A&E bay and told her a coastguard crew had found the bodies, still entwined, snared in a lobster line not far from shore. He left Flanagan alone, and she said a small prayer, asked God to forgive Ciaran Devine.

  That night, DSI Purdy came to bring her home. He brought a bag of clothes he’d taken from his wife’s wardrobe. None of it matched, but Flanagan didn’t complain as she squeezed her feet into the slippers.

  ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she told him as they headed west towards the motorway. ‘I want to go to the Royal. To see Alistair.’

  ‘I think visiting’s over,’ Purdy said.

  ‘You think that’ll stop me?’

  He fell quiet then, and the hum of his car lulled her to the edge of sleep, her head propped on her hand.

  ‘I’ve had enough,’ Purdy said.

  Flanagan jerked awake. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m done,’ Purdy said. ‘I’m going to retire. I’ve fulfilled my thirty-year contract, so there’s nothing to stop me. I’m not far off sixty, and I’m still in decent shape. I might as well get out now, take my pension and run. Make the most of my dotage.’

  Flanagan smiled. ‘You don’t play golf, do you?’

  ‘Christ, no.’

/>   ‘Not too late to start.’

  ‘Yes it bloody is.’

  He had more to say, Flanagan could tell. She kept her silence and waited.

  As they reached the southern outskirts of Belfast, the skeletal RISE sculpture at the Broadway junction came into view. Two globes, one within the other, a latticework of steel and light sparkling against the dim orange glow of the city. At last, Purdy spoke.

  ‘I made some bad decisions. I suppose everyone does, now and then. But there’ve been too many recently. Some of those decisions hurt you. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have a monopoly on mistakes,’ Flanagan said. ‘God knows, I’ve made enough.’

  She thought of the blade entering her husband’s flank. The shock on his face. His anger at her for bringing this upon his family.

  Minutes later, Purdy stopped his car a few yards from the hospital’s main entrance.

  ‘Thank you,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘Least I could do,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget, meeting with the ACC at eight a.m. The Ombudsman’s office at ten. You’ve a lot of statements to give.’

  Flanagan gave a weary nod.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Purdy said. ‘I’ll stand by you. It’ll be tough, but you’ve been through worse.’

  ‘True,’ Flanagan said.

  She touched his arm, got out of the car, and walked to the entrance.

  Patients ambled here and there, having abandoned their wards to sneak late night cigarettes outside. They looked like shuffling zombies, in thrall to their glowing embers and blue smoke.

  Flanagan took the lift to Alistair’s floor, found the doors to his ward locked as she expected. She pressed the bell.

  The nurse at the far end of the hall, visible through the windows, ignored her. Flanagan pressed the button again. And once more.

  At last, the doors opened and Flanagan stepped through. The nurse met her halfway along the hall. A different woman, not kind-eyed and understanding like last night.

  ‘Visiting’s over at eight-fifteen,’ she said.

  ‘I need to see my husband,’ Flanagan said. ‘Please.’

  ‘No, the policy’s quite clear, and it’s up on the door. No visitors after the allotted time.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Flanagan said, blinking the heat from her eyes as she willed herself not to cry now, not now, not after all this. ‘You don’t know what I’ve been through.’

  The nurse folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. ‘I can’t make exceptions, I’m sorry.’

  Flanagan reached for the lump in her pocket: her wallet, sodden with water, sealed in a zip-lock bag. She removed the wallet, opened it, showed the nurse her soaked warrant card.

  ‘So?’ the nurse said. ‘Being a police officer does not give you special privileges.’

  Flanagan exhaled. ‘Look, I’m going to my husband. You can try to stop me, you can call security, do whatever the hell you want, but I’m going to him. Easiest thing is to just let me past, then the whole ward won’t get woken up.’

  The nurse unfolded her arms, put her hands on her hips. She chewed her lip as she watched Flanagan. ‘All right. Ten minutes, then out. And don’t ever threaten me again or I’ll have you barred from this ward. Understood?’

  Flanagan nodded, said, ‘Understood.’

  She found Alistair held within the soft glow from a lamp over the bed. He snored, a gentle rattle as he breathed. The kind of snore he made when he’d had a drink. Morphine, probably, she thought.

  She lifted the chair from the corner, brought it close to the bed. His hand warm in hers, she sat down, leaned forward. Rested her head on his shoulder.

  The nurse woke her ninety minutes later, told her it really was time to go now.

  By the following afternoon, Flanagan ached with fatigue, her mind dulled by hours of recounting events to one impassive face after another. She told it all as it had happened, no embellishment, no excuses, no hiding her own mistakes.

  During her brief break for lunch she called Alistair’s sister, who would bring Ruth and Eli home that evening. The idea of holding them filled Flanagan’s heart and gave her the will to get through the rest of the day.

  After that, she called Paula Cunningham, and heard traffic sounds when she answered. Outside her hotel having a cigarette, she said.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘I’d quit,’ Cunningham said. ‘Now I’ve un-quit. Given the circumstances, I think I’m entitled.’

  Flanagan brought her up to date on what had happened. Cunningham gave a despairing sigh.

  ‘It means you’re safe now,’ Flanagan said. ‘You can go home.’

  ‘That house will never be my home again,’ Cunningham said. ‘Besides, I could get used to hotel living. Room service, late bar, all that. While Angus is still with the vet, I’ll hang out here. I’ve got a little room on my credit cards to blow through, so I might as well make the most of it.’

  They said farewell, promised to keep in touch, but Flanagan knew it was an empty oath.

  She had left her car keys with a constable at the hospital, and the eager young man had volunteered to drive the car to Lisburn this afternoon. It had gone four when Flanagan hauled herself towards the station exit, her thoughts focused first on her children, then a bloody good night’s sleep.

  ‘Before you go,’ Purdy called from along the corridor.

  Flanagan’s shoulders slumped in spite of herself. She turned to him.

  ‘There’s a chap has called in. He’s insisting on talking to you.’

  Flanagan sighed. ‘Can Ballantine do it?’

  Purdy shrugged. ‘You and only you, he says.’

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Barry Timmons. That Walker woman’s boyfriend. The one you—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Flanagan said. ‘Where?’

  Flanagan found him in the interview room. When he saw her enter, tears sprang from his eyes. His hands shook. He swallowed, a click in his throat.

  ‘Barry,’ she said. ‘I think you have something to tell me.’

  Acknowledgements

  ONCE AGAIN I am beholden to the village of people who helped me raise this particularly difficult child. My heartfelt thanks to all the following:

  Somebody once described my agent Nat Sobel to me as ‘one of the great men of publishing’, and I can’t argue with that. Both he and his partner in crime, Judith Weber, have been the best guides an author could hope for. And all the good people at Sobel Weber, as well as Caspian Dennis and all at Abner Stein for their constant support.

  As ever, I couldn’t do this without my editors Geoff Mulligan and Juliet Grames, and the wonderful people at Vintage Books and Soho Press, including Alison Hennessey, Bronwen Hruska, Paul Oliver, Fiona Murphy and many more.

  I owe special thanks to Steve Cavanagh and Paul McCusker for their insights into the opposite ends of the youth justice system, from entrance to exit. I have taken liberties with the procedures here and there, and have doubtless made mistakes, but be aware that such diversions from reality are entirely of my own making and are no reflection on the expertise of these gentlemen.

  The generosity of the crime fiction community never ceases to amaze me. Writers, readers, bloggers, reviewers, all have shown me tremendous kindness, and I am grateful.

  As before, a large portion of this book was written in my local library, and librarians and booksellers have been among my greatest champions. God bless libraries and independent bookstores because I wouldn’t have a career without them.

  The supportiveness of my wider family circle has been invaluable over the last few years, and there have been several moments where I might have given up on this writing lark if not for those closest to me: My children, Issy and Ezra, and my wife Jo, who have given me more than I could ever deserve.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifi
cally permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781448138517

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  Harvill Secker, an imprint of Vintage Publishing,

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  Harvill Secker is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

  Copyright © Stuart Neville 2015

  Stuart Neville has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published by Harvill Secker in 2015

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  www.vintage-books.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781846556968