by Chris Petit
Westerby watched them march away down the corridor. The arrival of Moffat and his men was what must have alerted Candlestick, she realized. He would have seen them piling out of their cars.
She looked at the men left with her.
‘Thanks for fucking it up, boys,’ she said and wondered queasily how they’d known.
56
THEY made Cross wait a couple of hours, keeping him isolated in a conference room.
After the hospital Moffat, still incandescent with rage, had told Westerby to go with him. This left Cross to drive back to the barracks alone. He wondered how Moffat had known they were at the hospital. Then it hit him. They must be bugging Westerby’s apartment. There was no other way Moffat could have known. The realization left Cross clammy. In that case they would be privy to everything. It had not occurred to him until then that Moffat mistrusted him in return.
Immediately on his arrival at the barracks Cross had been summoned to Nesbitt’s office and, after being made to wait in his lobby for an hour, Nesbitt had come out and told him to go to the conference room.
Compared to the time they’d made him wait, the meeting was insolently brief. Moffat was there, looking supercilious. Cross asked to speak to Nesbitt alone. He had decided that a full statement, including criticism of Moffat’s role, was his best hope.
Nesbitt told Cross to shut up. ‘Would you say that WPC Westerby is a good officer?’
‘Yes.’
‘One of the best you’ve had?’ Cross caught Moffat smirking.
‘Yes.’
‘There’s increasing pressure to promote women in the force, as you know. Would you say that Westerby is future DI material?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Nesbitt sighed. ‘So would I. I don’t have to warn you what the punishment is for a married officer involved in a relationship with a policewoman.’
Cross asked Nesbitt on whose authorization had Westerby’s apartment been bugged. Nesbitt declared that the information was not germane to the discussion.
Cross’s voice rose in anger. ‘Excuse me, sir, but if someone is eavesdropping on the private life of one of my constables that information is invalid and confidential.’ He turned to Moffat. ‘No wonder I didn’t trust you—’
‘And jeopardized a whole investigation.’
Cross addressed Nesbitt again. ‘It’s my belief that Mr Moffat, for reasons quite outside our investigation, wants the man we are seeking dead.’
Nesbitt held up his hand. ‘Are we talking about a shoot-to-kill policy?’
‘You know we are.’
‘There is no such policy.’
Cross snorted in disbelief. Moffat interrupted smoothly, saying that as far as he was concerned he and Cross had been working jointly. ‘Until I became aware of the extent of DI Cross’s paranoia, that is.’
When the blow came it came from an unexpected quarter. Nesbitt drew Cross by reminding him of the investigation he had been under at the beginning of the year, for sexual harassment.
‘What would you say,’ said Nesbitt, ‘if WPC Westerby brought a similar charge against you?’
Cross could not believe what he was hearing.
‘If she did then I’d resign,’ he said with as much dignity as he could muster. ‘Is WPC Westerby bringing such a charge?’
‘That depends,’ said Moffat.
‘On what?’ asked Cross.
‘On you.’
If Westerby brought the charge then it was obvious he would be forced to resign. If she refused both of them would be punished or shunted so far sideways that they would resign out of boredom. Or he could do the decent thing for her sake and resign anyway.
Cross saw they were playing on his loyalty to her. He sighed and congratulated them on their cleverness, and added that if Moffat had applied even a quarter of the ingenuity he had just shown to catching their killer they would have had him arrested weeks ago.
‘Am I suspended?’ he asked.
‘We’ll let you know,’ said Nesbitt.
That was it, then, he kept thinking, on the way back to his office. Moffat had won. He remembered Westerby pointing out the rivalry between them. Perhaps that’s all it was, a tussle of vanity to see who was the cleverer. He felt sick.
He sat for a long time, ignoring the frequent ringing of the phone. When he left he took his messages and drove to Westerby’s. The light was on but she did not answer.
He sat in the car, hoping she would come out. There was jazz on the radio, nervous be-bop that agitated his mood. He’d have to go to a hotel, he decided. He sifted through his messages. There was one from the boy Vinnie, with a Dublin number. So the lad had gone away after all. The news cheered him up briefly.
He glanced at the other messages. There were several from Sally, the children’s minder, asking him to phone her at the O’Neills. The last said it was urgent.
He remembered the holiday. He’d forgotten about that again. All the time in the world now for holidays, he thought grimly as he started the car.
He found a phone box that worked and called the O’Neills. Barbara answered.
‘Oh, there you are. Where have you been?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Matthew’s got himself lost.’
‘Lost?’ echoed Cross, feeling a stab of panic.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ she went on blithely.
Cross drove there in a hurry. What a day, he thought grimly. He kept telling himself that Barbara O’Neill was right and there was nothing to worry about.
She was at the house with Fiona. What had happened was that Sally and the children and some of their friends had gone off to the woods to play hide and seek. When it had come to Matthew’s turn they’d not been able to find him. She thought he might have fallen and hurt himself but no one was panicking. Yet, thought Cross. A couple of local constables were out searching.
Cross asked where Deidre was.
‘She wasn’t in the office. She’s usually back by now.’
He sighed. He phoned the tourist office but the switchboard had closed for the night.
He found them a mile or so from the house, down a side road that was not much more than a track. Gub O’Neill, immaculately clad in stout brogues, long socks and water-proofs, had clearly taken charge. He told Cross that they’d swept the woods where the children had been playing but with so few of them they’d not got far.
‘It’s easy to get lost in there if you don’t have your bearings. He’ll have picked up a path, probably, and gone wandering round in circles.’
O’Neill sounded optimistic. He’d asked one of the policemen to radio for more help, he said, and rolled his eyes to indicate his opinion of the man’s calibre.
‘We’ve got to find him before dark and these are big woods. Matthew could be anything up to three miles away by now. Temperature’s going to drop a bit tonight. Wouldn’t want him out then.’
Cross excused himself and went over to Sally, who was standing alone looking distraught.
‘I told him not to go too far. I don’t understand. He’s never done anything like this before.’
She explained how Matthew had been bored because he had been the eldest and had found the game too easy. When it had been his turn to hide, Fiona had been distracted by one of the others grazing a knee, so they had not started searching straight away. Sally choked back a sob and wrung her hands.
‘I was annoyed at first. Matthew’s old enough to know that the others were too young to go far. I didn’t start to worry until we started calling. We called and called.’
Her voice was alive with panic. Cross could see how hard it must have been for her to prevent her anxiety spreading to the children. Once Matthew was not immediately to be found she had driven them back to the O’Neills’. Cross told her she had done the right thing.
‘Don’t worry. We’ll find him.’
‘I knew I shouldn’t have brought them here. I even had a feeling something like this would happen
.’
Cross reassured her that he did not hold her in any way responsible.
‘Did you reach Mrs Cross?’
Sally shook her head. ‘They said she was in Cushendall but when I telephoned the hotel she was visiting they didn’t know about her being there, so I expect there was a muddle.’
Six more policemen arrived, making ten altogether in the search party. Cross tried to put out of his mind the question of Deidre’s whereabouts.
They formed a line and set off, taking it in turns to call out Matthew’s name. For half an hour they swept in a wide arc, then back towards the rendezvous. As darkness fell a couple of hours later torches were switched on, their beams dimmed by a rising mist. A helicopter joined them, hovering low, using its searchlight to scan the tracery of forest paths. It made darting runs, sometimes moving forward until its sound was almost gone, then sweeping back again, the beam of its light catching them as it passed over, turning their faces ghostly blue.
When they returned to the vehicles Deidre was waiting. She wanted to join the search, but Cross persuaded her to stay at the house and prepare something warm for when Matthew got back.
‘We’ll make another sweep,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. He’s a sensible kid.’
‘What if someone’s taken him?’
‘Nobody’s taken him. He’s just got lost.’ He hoped, for her sake, that he sounded convincing. Please God, he prayed, it’s too soon for seven.
Cross searched, unaware of the others. Panic at the thought of not finding his son fuelled the greater panic that he had fallen into Candlestick’s hands. A fine rain began to fall. Cross sensed the search party losing heart. Please God, he prayed again, it’s too soon for seven.
57
THE boy was in the boot, just like he had once been himself almost exactly twelve years before, except the boy was tied up. The thought made him snicker because he and the boy had nothing in common, apart from their travelling in the boot of a car.
He grinned at the driving mirror. Things couldn’t have turned out better, after all.
He drove fast, dwelling on the good memories he had of where they were going. One fine winter morning earlier in the year he had walked down the hill, aware of the dew on his boots and the give of soft earth beneath his heel, amused at the fact that he was there to kill Breen before the booze did. Breen, now hidden away as Berrigan. He’d seen him from his camp on the hill on the few occasions Breen had ventured out. At first he hadn’t realized that the distant tottering figure was Breen. Not yet fifty and as stooped and shuffling as a man of eighty.
It did not prepare him for the shock of Breen close to. In the four years since he’d seen him he’d aged terribly, and bore no resemblance to the man he’d once been. He found a pathetic broken wreck sitting at the kitchen table in a puddled stupor at eight in the morning.
‘Is it really you?’ Breen had asked, blinking at the sight of him, backlit by the open door. His eyes rolled around, searching for a focus. Candlestick laughed at Breen, trying to work out whether he was a ghost or not.
‘So you didn’t get blown up after all,’ he finally said as Candlestick shut the door.
‘I can’t say you’re looking well, Francis.’
Breen wheezed, which set off a hacking cough. ‘How did you know where to find me?’
Candlestick tapped his nose conspiratorially.
Breen poured himself another drink. ‘Breakfast,’ he said grimly. ‘Breakfast, lunch and dinner. And yourself?’
Candlestick let Breen pour him a glass which he didn’t touch.
‘Sit down, sit down,’ Breen said and when he saw that Candlestick would not, his eyes took on a puzzled look, tinged with apprehension.
‘Why’re you here?’
‘I’ve come for your debriefing, Francis, and this time I’ll drag the whole sorry story out of you.’
His thoughts were ‘lepping’ around as he drove. ‘Stop lepping around and hold still,’ is what his father used to say as he took the strap to him. He’d been stung by the sight of the policeman and his bitch in the canteen. Victim number ten had been very lucky, he thought, as a result of this acceleration in his plans, and victims number eleven and twelve. He’d go back and kill them later, for the neatness of it and to honour his obligation. He’d not expected to get his hands on the boy so soon after the copper and his cunt in the canteen. They’d been that close they could have touched him.
He’d followed the wife sometimes on the days he wasn’t working, not that she was on his list, but being the copper’s wife made her a curiosity. He’d seen her at the tourist board and even knew by the once or twice he’d driven behind her that she’d taken the kids and was living out near the lough.
After the shock of the canteen, his first thought was to kick back, to show he wasn’t to be monkeyed with, and maybe doorstep the wife or the blue rinse – the mother, presumably – that lived in the fancy house where the wife and kiddies were staying. Hit back hard. He’d even thought about going into the house and taking a pop at the lot of them. That’d give the copper something to think about.
From high in a tree overlooking the house, he had realized, as he basked in the afternoon sunlight, that nothing gave him more pleasure than watching a place whose people didn’t know he was there. That was when the feeling of holding lives in the palm of his hand was strongest.
58
IN his wildest moments of hope Cross was sure Matthew would be waiting at home, having maybe found a taxi. He knew the address and number because Cross had taught him them.
When he had told Deidre he was going home to check, she had given him a look that said his responsibility was to the search. He could have sent someone else, but by then he was sure the search was a waste of time. Matthew was gone.
He thought he heard the phone ringing deep inside the house as he pulled into the garage, then lost it in the noise of the metal door swinging automatically shut behind him. He decided it was his imagination, then he heard it again, barely penetrating the heavy silence. He ran, praying that his prayers had been answered.
It rang off as he reached it. He screamed obscenities at the lump of plastic.
Minutes later it went again. Cross snatched up the receiver.
‘Matthew?’
It was Westerby. Cross felt a burst of irritation and said he couldn’t talk. He presumed she wanted to conduct a post-mortem on the events of that afternoon.
‘Wait, sir. It’s about him.’
She sounded cold and professional. She told him Candlestick had called her demanding to talk to Cross.
‘What about?’ Fear clutched at his heart.
‘He wouldn’t say. He asked for numbers where you might be. I didn’t know what to do.’
‘You gave them?’
‘Yes.’ Westerby sounded cowed, like she was expecting a reprimand.
Cross hung up abruptly. He allowed himself the small hope that Candlestick trying to make contact was a sign Matthew was alive. His palms were slick with sweat.
The call came half an hour later. The voice was dull, matter of fact. ‘You know why I’m calling.’
‘Is he safe? Let me talk to him,’ said Cross.
Candlestick said the boy’s life depended on him. ‘I want you to issue a public statement. Then you get the boy back.’
‘What statement?’
Candlestick told him that a copy of it had been put through his letter box. He was to read it and expect another call.
It lay in an unmarked brown envelope on top of the pile of unsorted mail on the mat. Cross read:
I am the Psalm Killer. I am the candel Stick of TRrue liGht. To the peple of Northern Ireland, I say: put a way your wepons. I have killed 9 (nine) people so far that all of you migt live in peace. I will kill many more untill you learn to live with eacH otHer. I WILL KILL Youre CHILDREN. The deaths of Francis Berrigan-Breen Mary Elam Patrick Wheen Roger Arnold Mary Ryan Catherine Edge MarGaret Eddoes Charles Causley & Brian Caddy were all the secreT work o
f Myself & I anounce them noW i) because your securiTy forces will not let you see tHem as the work of ONEman, ii) to say to you that these killings are But a start.
They will cese when the other killinGs stop. They will cease when tHe British goverment announces to the people of Northern Ireland the folowing. That in 1972 it used aGents to create a Riegn of Terror against Roman CatHolics. That tHese same aGents instiggated the shanKILL murders on the instructoNs of the British in the same way that iT Had useD Agents to shoot Protestants by way of insitement. That in 1974 it, or a faction of its government, gave aid to bombings carryed out in the Republic of Ireland. That in 1974, it or a facTion thereofF, conSpireD to bring about the creation of a terrorist organisation, the INLA, with whom it colaborrated. That with the help of the INLA, the british GoverMent, or a faction thereof, conspired to bring about the death of the British politican Airey Neave. That they also combined to murder John McKeague, a longTerm aSSet of the Security forCes.
The people of Nothern Ireland have lived in hell for SIXTEEN (16) years. To tHem I say, Deliverence lies in your hands. & I am the instrument of that deliverance. Your proTest will end the kiLLings. Recognice that the bRitish have never broght a solution to Ireland. The solution is Yours. Listen and you shal be SaveD. Ignore my voise and I will MaSSacre your children until the DefneSS falls from your ears.
Cross’s first thought was that Moffat would not buy it. ‘Fuck him,’ he could hear Moffat saying behind his back. ‘Stay silent and what does he do? Murder a few of their children, but where does that get him if no one will let him voice his demands? He’s cut off and still operating within an acceptable level. He’s misplayed his hand. Cover-up is the one thing we do better than anyone.’
For a moment, Cross thought of leaking the information himself, but where? The usual outlets would refer it for security clearance. He thought swiftly, trying at least to come up with a semblance of a plan.
When Candlestick called back Cross said that he had no problems with the terms but time was needed to authorize clearance. Candlestick said he had an hour.
